Guns laws in the spotlight after Orlando massacre

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Guns this year have already killed five times more people in Chicago compared to those who died in the Orlando nightclub massacre.

Guns are at the center of an emotional debate that often begins with grieving families.

“My baby's gone. My baby's gone,” said Rickey D. Fields, whose son was killed by gunfire Saturday,

As friends and family consoled Rickey Fields late Monday, the founding principal of Urban Prep High School's Englewood campus also offered his condolences.

Seventeen-year-old Christopher Fields was known as a popular and hard-working junior at Urban Prep, who had hoped to attend Howard University after graduating next year.

Fields was standing a few doors from his home with a 19-year old relative when witnesses say three men in a silver Audi drove up and started shooting.

There's a hole in one wall of his home where one bullet apparently entered. His father, a 30-year postal worker, said he found it on the floor inside.

“You got people out here just sellin' guns randomly. They just get the money. So, yeah, it's too many weapons on the street,” Fields said.

Many other Chicagoans would also like to see the apparent random killing of 17-year old Christopher Fields, as well as that of hundreds of other Chicagoans this year, become part of the national debate about violence and guns.

“Every single gun starts off legal. And clearly the problem we have is the easy accessibility of guns in our country,” said Colleen Daley of the IL Council on Handgun Violence.

Gun control advocates fear the General Assembly would once again reject a ban on so-called assault weapons, as legislators did three years ago. They now seek to require gun shops do background checks on all employees. They also want a new "Lethal Violence Order of Protection."

Petitioners could present evidence to a judge that a gun owner – say the killer in Orlando - is dangerous. The court could then order police to seize that person's firearms, at least temporarily.

FOX 32 News reached out to several local gun rights activists for comment, but they did not respond.

A congressional Republican argued more Orlando nightclub victims might have survived if they had guns, and that weapons bans wouldn't work.