I live in Atlanta (Midtown) and lived in Chicago for 30 years.

Chicago is a much more violent city. The reason for that is the grinding poverty on parts of the West and South sides.

The myth of Chicago is that the whole south side is a war zone, but it's actually a small slice of it. Much of the south side is like Atlanta, with a very healthy Black middle class population.

The poverty zone on the West side is a bit bigger, but poverty is much more a cause of its violence than guns.

Chicago has stricter gun laws, but they're not well enforced. Everyone has guns. The courts are gonna kill that law anyway. Because POTUS.

Everyone has guns in Atlanta, too (well, everyone but me, it seems). But Atlanta is much safer. That's because it has a much larger and healthier Black middle class. It's essentially a Black town, run and worked by Black folks. To me, it's a model city (if any big city can call itself that). There is violence, but it's nothing like Chicago, where people are getting shot on expressways and carjackings happen by the dozens per day.

I take a walk along the Beltline here in Midtown Atlanta everyday. Never had a gun pointed at me. Packed with people of all races and creeds. In the three years I've walked along the beltline, which is a very busy urban walking/riding trail, I've seen one pair of cops on bikes. So the safety isn't because of a police presence. I walk it almost every day.

The Democratic Convention would be held in a private venue, so they can do whatever they want to limit guns there.

Atlanta would be a fantastic choice. And it would shove the Dems successes in various things directly up Brian Kemp's nose.

If you're visiting Atlanta, I'm not saying you don't need to be careful. You always need to be careful visiting a big city. But I feel much safer here than I did in Chicago.