Posted on 11/08/2004 10:54:24 AM PST by TERMINATTOR
From Virginia Soto,Your Guide to Chicago.
Below is a press release from the Second Amendment Foundation, a pro-gun lobby. Before you read it, here are some facts put out by the Chicago police department: According to the police, in 2003 Chicago had the fewest number of homicides since 1967, when 552 people were murdered in our city. The statistics for the year 2003 are the more impressive when one takes into account the "particularly violent spring" the city had. And it was not only the murder rate that declined. The overall "index crime" rate (which tracks nine major violent and property crimes), went down 4.4 percent from the previous year's numbers. Some specific figures: aggravated battery went down 18.3 percent; criminal sexual assault went down 10.5 percent; and violent crime went down 10.7 percent. Nonetheless, Chicago (with 599 murders total for the year) once again ended up as the nation's murder capital. New York, which has about three times the population of Chicago, had three fewer murders. And Los Angeles, the nation's second largest city, had less than 500 homicides. So, what is Chicago doing wrong?
Strict gun control in Chicago has worked... to once again boost the homicide rate, making the Windy City the most murderous city in the nation for the past 12 months, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) said today.
"Chicago finished off the year with more murders than New York or Los Angeles," said SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb. "During the past 12 months, 599 people were murdered in Chicago, three more than in New York, where 596 people were slain, and about 100 more than in Los Angeles.
"Isn't it remarkable," he observed, "that Chicago, New York and Los Angeles have some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, yet they still typically lead the nation in the number of homicides?"
Gottlieb was particularly critical about Chicago's murders because Mayor Richard Daley has made his anti-gun philosophy a cornerstone of his administration. Gottlieb recalled that one of the city's highest profile crimes was the workplace massacre at Windy City Core Supply in August. In that case, recidivist felon Salvador Tapia used an unregistered handgun that had previously been owned by two now-deceased Chicago police officers.
"How Tapia got a gun that had been owned by two cops in violation of the very gun laws they were sworn to uphold underscores the hypocrisy and complete failure of Chicago's Draconian anti-gun laws," Gottlieb stated. "Chicago's murder rate will stand as a monument the institutionalized brutality that gun control represents.
"On the other hand, in Detroit, a city once plagued by runaway murder rates, the number of homicides has reportedly dropped to its lowest level since 1968," Gottlieb noted. "Two years ago, Michigan reformed its concealed carry law, and today, thousands of law-abiding citizens in Michigan are legally armed. Gosh, do you suppose there is any correlation?
"Mayor Daley should publicly admit that gun control in his city has been an absolute failure," Gottlieb stated. "It is time for Daley and his anti-gun colleagues to take responsibility for every one of these killings, and to either change the law, or get out of public service."
The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers & an amicus brief & fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.
For more informaation, contact: Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, 425-454-7012.
As if the people who voted for Carol Mosley Brown and Barak Obama know how to read.
Isn't this the BLUEST city in the nation? And they call us stupid....
I live in Chicago. It and Illinois are sadly becoming the NY/CA of the Midwest. Mayor Daley a fraud and will continue to exude his power unchecked. The lazy, liberal Chicago press will do nothing to report the truth (including the horrible condition of the Chicago Public Schools).
I think Daley is trying to get more democrat voters (dead ones).
GianniV: I'm out in the burbs (where I can keep my pistol) and what torques me the most is that 599 fellow Illinoisans were murdered - most of them from a governmentally protected demographic - and the entire American culture is thoroughly disgusted with the death of a pregnant white California woman, which they gawk at in rapt awe on TV.
I don't quite understand that. Both sides of my family are from the Chicago area and are very conservative ... and they're obviously not the only ones. Why can't Republicans make any headway in Chicagoland?
In the meantime, live your lives from day to day, not knowing if you will get to work or back home that night without getting shot. Right? Yup. That's the ticket. It says right there in the Declaration of Independence that we the people appointed government to decide who has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ain't life great -- when we're allowed to live it?
Now if we can just get the guns out of the hands of criminals. I think another gun prohibition law would do that. It is hereby enacted that criminals are no longer allowed to own or use guns. Finally a common sense law. Now let's go on a nice picnic down at Douglas Park.
You make some of my favorite graphics! Musketban was another.
Who counts the vote in Chicago...then counts them again and again until they come out right.
I have to take some of what Gottlieb has said with a grain of salt – not from a gun cotrol standpoint, but just to put all of this in perspective. New York has been doing wonders with bringing its murder rate down; it's now lower than it was in the early '60s. Remember in 1990, when it accounted for more than 15% of all murders in the country? Now it accounts for less than 3%. It leads the nation in the decline in crime. Los Angeles had 500 murders last year, but it was the murder capital the year before.
And Detroit? Sure, homicides dropped last year, but even if the murder count is the lowest since 1968, the murder RATE is twice as high, because Detroit had twice the population in '68 than it has now. And last time I checked, homicides have gone up this year.
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