Chicago Heat

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

That’s the entirety of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. People who believe that we should be able to have just about any form of assault weapon or oversized magazine or that background checks should not be required for private sales read the second half of that amendment. People who think gun control is well within the purview of Congress read the first half of that sentence. But nobody seriously believes that substantial gun control legislation has a shot in hell of making it through Congress this year or at any time in the near future. Those who treasure assault weapons and the destructive capacity that goes with them must think that the right to have such guns is more important than preventing mass slaughter, even if a few dozen kids have to die in a hail of bullets.

After banning handguns for decades, Chicago was forced to give up that ban in 2010 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such blanket proscription was unconstitutional, but the city is still pretty strict about guns. However, gun-rights advocates point to the failure of strong gun control laws in Chicago as conclusive proof that such strict gun controls actually increase crime. Here’s their argument. Illinois is the only state in the union where people cannot carry guns openly, even weapons from legitimate sales with full background checks. Chicago severely restricts the sale and possession of guns within city limits.

But Chicago’s crime statistics are appalling: “… 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 47 killings already in 2013, including the fatal shooting of 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton, less than a mile from the Obama's Chicago home, on [January 29^th]…. (She had just performed at the inauguration the previous week. Her parents sat with the first lady during the State of the Union address this week, helping to put a face on the daily gun violence Chicago citizens face.) 

Lately, the police say they are discovering far more guns on the streets of Chicago than in the nation’s two more populous cities, Los Angeles and New York. They seized 7,400 guns here in crimes or unpermitted uses last year (compared with 3,285 in New York City), and have confiscated 574 guns just since Jan. 1 — 124 of them [in the week of January 20^th] alone.” New York Times, January 29^th. Wow! We need to repeal those restrictions and arm the innocent victims of Chicago crime violence… now! But where did they get those guns?

“More than a quarter of the firearms seized on the streets here by the Chicago Police Department over the past five years were bought just outside city limits in Cook County suburbs, according to an analysis by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Others came from stores around Illinois and from other states, like Indiana, less than an hour’s drive away. Since 2008, more than 1,300 of the confiscated guns, the analysis showed, were bought from just one store, Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, Ill., within a few miles of Chicago’s city limits.

“Efforts to compare the strictness of gun laws and the level of violence across major American cities are fraught with contradiction and complication, not least because of varying degrees of coordination between local and state laws and differing levels of enforcement. In New York City, where homicides and shootings have decreased, the gun laws are generally seen as at least as strict as Chicago’s, and the state laws in New York and many of its neighboring states are viewed as still tougher than those in and around Illinois. Philadelphia, like cities in many states, is limited in writing gun measures that go beyond those set by Pennsylvania law. Some city officials there have chafed under what they see as relatively lax state controls.” NY Times.

Hmmmm… it seems that gun control legislation doesn’t work well without… er… gun control legislation where guns are actually bought! As for those who are skeptical about what really happens to crime rates when personal firearms are legislated out of a society that was used to having such guns, I refer you to my January 4^th blog (Who Owns the Piece that Killed) where Australia did precisely that after a mass shooting in 1996. According to the August 12, 2011 Washington Post, “So what have the Australian laws actually done for homicide and suicide rates? [Former conservative Prime Minister John] Howard cites a study (pdf) by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University finding that the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides. That provides strong circumstantial evidence for the law’s effectiveness… The paper also estimated that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people results in a 35 to 50 percent decline in the homicide rate…” Oh.

In her halting speech (resulting from brain damage inflicted in an assassination attempt) before a Senate committee hearing on January 30^th, gun-owning former Arizona Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, advocating a ban on assault weapons and oversized magazines (and uniform background checks on prospective gun buyers), said slowly and simply, “Too many children are dying.” Don’t worry, Gabby, Congress will ignore you and the deaths gone by and those in the future. The NRA is more important than the lives of the children of our national constituency to politicians who love their jobs too much to do what’s morally correct.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder when the next crazed gunman will fire on a bevy of civilians using a legally purchased assault weapon… and create a few more deaths that could have been prevented.