Chicago is the reason Illinois has so many gun control laws on the books. Outside of that city, most in the state respect the right to keep and bear arms to some degree. While they might favor a few regulations, what's on the books goes beyond what many are comfortable with at all.

And yet, despite the plethora of regulations in the state, Chicago keeps having an issue with violent crime.

That's because no matter what you try to do, bad people will keep getting guns. There are just too many guns on the black market for there to be a hope in Hades of that happening.

So it seems a group is trying a different approach.

Each year, the Chicago Police Department seizes about 10,000 illegal guns and arrests thousands of people for illegal gun possession. Yet guns remain plentiful and easy to acquire, and young people who live in dangerous neighborhoods say they feel unsafe without them.

Now, one group is trying a different tactic, telling those youths: Keep your guns if you must, but learn how to handle them safely.

The approach uses the philosophy of harm reduction, better known in the arenas of drug addiction and public health. Harm reduction aims to be practical and nonjudgmental, offering help without insisting on abstinence — for example, giving clean needles to heroin users or condoms to teenagers.

In much the same way, Stick Talk, a Chicago collective, has taken to teaching small groups of teenagers and young adults skills like first aid for gunshot wounds and how to avoid accidental discharges.

“We found out that a lot of the stuff they teach our children are not working,” said Malik Cole, 27, who conducts Stick Talk workshops in a state-run juvenile lockup where he himself was detained as a youth. “Kids still dying.”

Stick Talk, he said, asked young people what they wanted to learn “to help them survive in life.”

Owning a gun is illegal for people under 21 in Chicago, and Stick Talk does not teach participants how to fire weapons. It does teach them how to carry, clean and store a gun and how to comport oneself during a police stop. Lifesaving techniques are taught by Ujimaa Medics, a Black health collective.

The approach is similar to that of a safe injection site, where people use illegal drugs under supervision. That model has gained support among left-leaning and moderate lawmakers as a way to prevent fatal overdoses but has also faced criticisms from some who worry that it makes drug problems worse.

And there's some wisdom in those criticisms.

However, let's be real here. These are people who are already carrying guns, but they're being stupid about it. They're hurting innocent people through that stupidity and they're screwing up by the numbers when confronted by the police while carrying them. Reducing that stupidity is a good thing overall.

I get not teaching them how to shoot, though I'll point out that much of the issue of this kind of violence is that they hurt innocent bystanders on a regular basis, so I could actually see the benefit of some marksmanship instruction, too, but I also get why that's not happening. After all, how many people who survive being shot would be killed if the bad guy actually knew how to hit his target?

But teaching first aid is just a generally good idea, particularly for trauma like gunshot wounds. I wouldn't limit it to that since things like car accidents are more common and treating that includes some things you're probably not going to see with a gunshot, but I think that's an excellent thing for people to learn in general.

My own take here is that I actually agree with what they're trying to do here. For better or worse, these kids are going to carry guns even if you tell them not to. If you can't stop them from doing it, at least direct them to not be morons about it.

It's not enough on its own, though, but I don't think they pretend it is. Instead, it's a piece of the puzzle, something that will help mitigate some of the issues until some other effort directs them away from thinking breaking the law is a fine way to go through life.