The city of Chicago has managed to hit the 500 mark for the year. Chicago is not known for being crime free by any means. But you can certainly start calling it one of the most dangerous cities in the country at this point. The city has now confirmed, or have they, 500 homicides in a single calendar year. Though according to a Chicago Tribune article the city seems to be doing all they can to use semantics to keep the tally at 499 instead of that infamous 500. Regardless the murder rate in Chicago is up 17% this year from last. Gun crime is up 11% in a city that severely restricts gun ownership. In fact Illinois is still the only state with an outright ban on obtaining concealed weapon permits (something the Federal courts have just ruled against). Yet even as this crime ridden city screams for tighter "gun control" things seem to be getting worse.
This seemingly "gun free" zone does not seem to be working! Only the bad guys seem to have guns in Chicago. This is the model that the liberally minded left is pushing more and more since the horrendous Sandy Hook school shooting. Interesting to me is how often I see news stories through sites like Drudge Report about double digit shootings in Chicago over 24 hour periods. Now, not all these are fatal. But in a city where gun ownership is practically outlawed explain to me how such a thing can happen. So many cities around the country have legal gun ownership, concealed carry permits, and no where near the number of shootings. Let alone the overall murder rate. This makes me think the gun correlation is perhaps, not what they seem to think it is?
Here's a couple examples of what a seemingly typical Chicago evening can culminate to:
- 8 Killed
- 30 Injured
November 2012 (Whole Month):
- 192 Shootings
- Shootings up 49%
- 5 Killed
- 24 Injured
This came from a simple Google search for news articles from Chicago itself. This total of 500 homicides for the city of Chicago includes people who died from other forms of violence. Imagine how many people are actually shot annually in Chicago. This blogger claims that there was actually a total of 2,640 shooting victims in Chicago as of December 19th, 2012. How is it that there are so many shootings in a single (albeit large) city every single year if you are not allowed to carry a gun?
Illinois State apparently prohibits any person from knowingly carrying a firearm openly or concealed on their person (unless in their own home/property). You can't even transport a firearm in a vehicle unless it is broken down into an unusable state, not immediately accessible, or enclosed in a case. At this point the laws render the firearm totally useless (and the owner defenseless). And you cannot obtain (because Illinois prohibits them) a concealed weapon permit. Yet somehow all these people are shooting each other with guns they can't legally carry?
I'm having a hard time understanding how they can continue to have record homicide rates and all these shootings if it's against the law to carry a gun. That would suggest that lots and lots of people are breaking the law and carrying guns to be used in criminal acts. Having been a police officer in my lifetime I can attest to something very simple, yet seemingly hard to grasp. Laws don't necessarily prevent activity. Laws provide a recourse for law enforcement when people choose to participate in an activity which is deemed by the populace at large to be unacceptable (in this case, illegal).
Here is a very simple and effective example.
"Thou shalt not kill."
This is a fairly basic law in just about every corner of our world. Yet people are murdered every single day on this little planet of ours. This may seem really sarcastic to some readers. But it's really just extremely simple. Just because it's against the law doesn't mean people won't do it. There is a certain element that will do whatever they feel like doing, whenever they feel like doing it, simply because they feel like it. As Chicago is such a great example of this also includes obtaining a firearm, carrying it illegally, and shooting and killing people even though all these things are illegal. Yet, meanwhile, the average citizen in the Chicago area who is mentally stable, moral, responsible, hard working, and law abiding will remain defenseless because they choose not to disobey the legal authorities (which is always the proper thing to do).
Let's face the reality here. Criminals will always find ways to obtain power over their victims. Be it attacking them while they're vulnerable (burglary of an unoccupied dwelling for instance) or using weapons against them (armed robbery, home invasion, etc). However, when faced with a person who refuses to be a victim these criminals often move on to target someone else (though not always). This element is usually looking for the easy score (which is why they don't make their living honestly by working 40 hours a week and getting along like the rest of us).
Here's the good news for Chicago (and the rest of Illinois). A federal appeals court recently struck down the Illinois ban on concealed weapons citing it as Unconstitutional. According to the Chicago Tribune Illinois now has 6 months to create laws to govern this newly found constitutional right to Illinois residents. Perhaps, as the criminal element discovers law abiding citizens are now legally packing heat, we can have a decrease in homicides (let alone shootings).
Obviously the severe restrictions on firearm possession in Chicago is simply not fixing their violence problem. There is more to this story than just guns though. The poverty, lack of married families, lack of fathers, presence of gangs, lack of education, you name them all.
