CHICAGO – Not a single gun shop can be found in this city because they are outlawed. Handguns were banned in Chicago for decades, too, until 2010, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that was going too far, leading city leaders to settle for restrictions some describe as the closest they could get legally to a ban without a ban. Despite a continuing legal fight, Illinois remains the only state in the nation with no provision to let private citizens carry guns in public.
And yet Chicago, a city with no civilian gun ranges and bans on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, finds itself laboring to stem a flood of gun violence that contributed to more than 500 homicides last year and at least 40 killings already in 2013, including a fatal shooting of a 15-year-old girl on Tuesday.
To gun rights advocates, the city provides stark evidence that even some of the toughest restrictions fail to make places safer. “The gun laws in Chicago only restrict the law-abiding citizens and they’ve essentially made the citizens prey,” said Richard A. Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. To gun control proponents, the struggles here underscore the opposite – a need for strict, uniform national gun laws to eliminate the current patchwork of state and local rules that allow guns to flow into this city from outside.
“Chicago is like a house with two parents that may try to have good rules and do what they can, but it’s like you’ve got this single house sitting on a whole block where there’s anarchy,” said the Rev. Ira J. Acree, one among a group of pastors here who have marched and gathered signatures for an end to so much shooting. “Chicago is an argument for laws that are statewide or, better yet, national.”
First up, remember this is one reason to be fearful of national gun control. No gun shops in all of Chicago, no gun ranges. How do you think this would play for mandatory safety classes and banns on private gun sales? You might have to drive out to the hinterlands just to comply with laws to protect yourself….from the place where guns are banned, and violence is rampant.
Still I love how they praise Chicago’s tough rules, when the standard bleeding-heart revolving door on criminals is in full-effect. A better Analogy for Chicago is like having a house with strict rules, but Mom and Dad both work two jobs and are never home!
Frankly most of the laws Chicago passes are completely redundant to federal laws, but since those laws aren’t being enforced, they SEEM ineffective, so more laws are demanded…that aren’t enforced.
Institutions like gun ranges and gun shops aren’t a problem. Institutions like gangs and the illegal drug trade are a very real and large problem.
We don’t have a gun problem in America, we have a criminal problem.
H/T Mrs. Weer’d
“Chicago is like a house with two parents that may try to have good rules and do what they can, but it’s like you’ve got this single house sitting on a whole block where there’s anarchy,” said the Rev. Ira J. Acree
So how come the rest of Illinois isn’t a zoo like Chicago is?
two reasons come to mind..
Outside Chicago people can have guns more easily and do.
The other is Chicago is a focal point, a nexus, for criminals like many large cities.
It has the needed elements for criminals to survive, masses of people to get lost in a
ready source of potential victims (prey), and places to dispose of the products of crime.
Nowhere near enough cops. Add to that a local dose of corruption, gangs, and drugs.
Eck!
Only 16% of the murders in Chicago last year were taken to prosecution. Another 9% were not prosecuted, but were marked as “solved” — not enough evidence, witnesses won’t testify, etc.
So 75% of the murders remain unsolved. Some of this MAY be due to a lack of manpower — see Second City Cop’s blog and the remarks on a lack of evidence technicians. I suspect a bigger issue is a code of silence in the ghetto, where “snitches get stitches”.
And it sure ain’t the guns. Guns don’t make murders harder to solve in Chicago than anywhere else.
Boston has a similar 75% rate of murders without prosecution, only BPD calls them all “Unsolved”. Seems that most of those cases, the gangs lean on the witnesses, to prevent testimony.
When I first moved here I was AMAZED, since in Maine, almost every murder gets SOMEBODY thrown in jail.
“Only criminals, dictators, and democrats fear armed citizens.”
– Jeff Cooper
I got a kick out of Iowahawk’s comment on this story earlier in the week:
“Chicago pols blame rampant shootings on guns from Indiana and Iowa, which, mysteriously, don’t have rampant shootings.”
Funny how that works.
I’d say Chicago is more like a house with two parents with very strict rules, and neither parent is willing to enforce any but the most trivial (read: EASIEST).
Problem child fails everything in school, is consistently violent toward everyone, and gets caught stealing. Parental reaction: Meh. Let him express him/her self. (read: We don’t want to deal with it.)
Well-behaved child forgets to set the table one night. Parental reaction: GROUNDED FOR A MONTH!!!11!!eleventy!!! (read: No danger in punishing this kid; he/she will accept it.)
End result: neither child respects the parents, nor do they grow up to be healthy or well-adjusted adults.