Do you feel safe in Nashville? Why?

Video: Word On The Street (12/21/07)

Aren't you afraid of being mugged, or even worse, shot?

Residents hear about these stories virtually every day on television news.

These crimes are committed in all parts of the Davidson County.

Victims that are mugged or robbed never know whether the assailant has a gun.

The state has issued more than 186,000 handgun permits in Tennessee.

Twelve-thousand five hundred of those legal weapons guns are in Nashville. But it's the criminals carrying the illegal guns -- that is the deadly problem here.

There have been more than 70 murder victims this year -- 54 of them with handguns. There have been more than 1,432 aggravated assaults with handguns.

Metro police have confiscated almost 1,600 guns this year -- 70 percent of them handguns.

The State Legislature has passed a new law in hopes of curbing the violence.

It will be a felony, no longer a misdemeanor, to possess a firearm in the commission of a felony crime and the same for running away after committing or attempting to commit a felony.

But how many lives will the new law save?

Will someone carrying an illegal handgun care about the new consequences while pumping bullets into a victim or victims?

I doubt it. Unfortunately any of us could be the next victim.