PHILADELPHIA – In a tough Philadelphia neighborhood where an off-duty police officer was shot to death this month, a mother is afraid to walk to the corner store with her two children. In a Chicago area where 23 people have been killed by gunfire so far this year, kids don't want to go outside. In Harlem, a 26-year-old man worries his family will get hit by crossfire.

Residents of inner-city neighborhoods plagued by gun violence say they feel neglected and ignored even in a presidential election year marked by highly publicized shootings at a Colorado movie theater, a Sikh temple and outside the Empire State Building — a year in which Republicans have launched a full-throated defense of gun ownership while Democrats have largely kept quiet about an issue they used to put front and center.

"People are being gunned down. Nobody's talking about it. But both parties want our votes," said the Rev. Ira Acree, of Greater St. John Bible Church in Chicago.