Posted on 07/31/2020 6:02:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
The tragically incompetent mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" this weekend to deflect attention from the horror show unfolding in her city by blaming interlopers for its spiking murder rate: "We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons -- that is hurting cities like Chicago."
Although these accusations have leveled by Chicago politicians for decades now, they are a myth.
For one thing, there is no state in the nation with "virtually no gun control" or "no background checks." Every time anyone in the United States purchases a gun from a federal firearms licensee -- a gun store, a gun show, it doesn't matter -- the seller runs a background check on the buyer through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System database. In some cases, the FFL checks to see if the buyer has passed a background check via a state-issued concealed-carry permit. In states that allow individual private sales, it is illegal to knowingly sell to anyone who you believe is obtaining a firearm for criminal purposes.
Those who cross state lines to buy guns undergo the same background check, and the sale is processed by an FFL in the buyer's home state. The exact same laws apply to all online sales.
The vast majority of Americans obtain their guns in this manner, and they rarely commit crimes. Around 7% of criminals in prison bought weapons using their real names. Fewer than 1% obtained them at gun shows. As the Heritage Foundation's Amy Swearer points out, there have been around 18 million concealed-carry permit holders over the past 15 years, and they have committed 801 firearm-related homicides over that span, or somewhere around 0.7% of all firearm-related murders. Concealed-carry holders not only are more law-abiding than the general population as a group; they are more law-abiding than law enforcement.
On top of all this, federal law requires every FFL license holder to report the purchase of two or more handguns by the same person with a week to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. This is one of the reasons straw purchasers -- people with a clean record who buy for criminals -- spread their operations to other states. This is not unique to Illinois or Chicago. It has nothing to do with strict or lenient laws. It has mostly to do with cities and states failing to prosecute straw purchases.
Lightfoot claims that 60% of the guns used in Chicago murders are bought from out of state. I assume she is relying on 2017's suspect "gun trace report," which looked at guns confiscated in criminal acts from 2013 and 2016. Even if we trusted the city's data, most guns used in Illinois crimes are bought in-state. If gun laws in Illinois -- which earns a grade of "A-" from the pro-gun-control Gifford Law Center, tied for second-highest in the country after New Jersey -- are more effective than gun laws in Missouri, Wisconsin, or Indiana, why is it that FFL dealers in suburban Cook County are the origin point for a third of the crime guns recovered in Chicago, and home to "seven of the top ten source dealers"?
The only reason, it seems, criminals take the drive to Indiana is because local gun shops are tapped out. There is a tremendous demand for weapons in Chicago.
Lightfoot may also be surprised to learn that California borders on states with liberal gun laws, such as Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. Yet no big city in California has quite the murder and criminality of Chicago. New York borders on states with liberal gun laws, such as Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Yet, NYC's murder rate is only a fraction of Chicago's. Texas gets an "F" from Gifford Law Center, yet Houston and Dallas have murder rates that are half of that in Chicago. The rates in Austin and El Paso are tiny in comparison.
Then, of course, the "assault weapons bans" that Lightfoot brings up have absolutely no bearing on Chicago's murder rate, even if such prohibitions actually worked. There were 864 murders in the state of Illinois in 2018 (the last year for which the FBI has full stats). Of homicides where the type of weapon is reported by law enforcement, 592 were perpetrated using handguns, 14 with rifles, and four with shotguns. Over 100 murders were committed using knives, other cutting instruments, hands, feet, and other types of weapons. And of the 14 "rifles" used, it's almost surely the case that not all of them were "assault weapons."
In the states in Illinois's neighborhood with no bans on "assault weapons," the number of murders committed with a "rifle" is correspondingly small -- 10 in Indiana, eight in Tennessee, six in Kentucky, four in Wisconsin and three in Mississippi.
Nearly 400 people have already been murdered in Chicago this year, around 100 more than in the entire year of 2019. On the night of May 29, 25 people were murdered and another 85 wounded by gunfire, more than any day in 60 years. And yet, the mayor is appearing on TV to blame Mississippi and Texas. It is far more likely that black-market guns find their way to Chicago because the place has been a poorly run criminal mecca for decades.
The guns come from the hood in Gary Indiana, so why isn’t the homicide rate there higher than Chicago?
The problem isn’t the gun, it is the trigger man.
... because the demand for them is in Chicago!
Are these Magic Guns capable of interstate travel on their own???
My birthplace has been reduced to this.
I once thought Chicago voters couldn’t sink lower than Rahm. I was wrong. The lovely Lori ticks more boxes.
It’s not a myth. Unicorns are a myth.
It’s a bald faced lie.
Big difference.
L
More to the point, how many guns have been convicted of murder?
Printer guns. It’s time for a ban on assault printers.
What is the current punishment (actual, not just what's in the legal books) for theft of a legally owned firearm?
What is the current punishment (actual, not just what's in the legal books) for a crime committed with a stolen firearm?
Don't tell me there's a "gun problem". It's a perpetrator problem and cities like Chicago keep releasing them.
“Yet no big city in California has quite the murder and criminality of Chicago.. “
No big city in THE WORLD has the political criminality of Chicago. The Lie by Lake is democrat to the bone.
People kill with an assortment of tools. Focusing on tools is counter productive. Death reigns in these leftist shit holes, because lawlessness characterizes the people who live there.
Democrat policies produce modern day plantation slave culture which exhibits the same character as that in the ante bellum south. The solution is to free the people from their “enslavement” under these democrat regimes which foster lawlessness.
Arrest the infection and promote policies that will produce a healthy culture.
“What is the current punishment (actual, not just what’s in the legal books) for theft of a legally owned firearm?
What is the current punishment (actual, not just what’s in the legal books) for a crime committed with a stolen firearm?”
Makes no difference as long as Shitcago has a communist Soros backed rat prosecutorette.
Is there anything Groot doesn’t blame on other people, anyone other than herself?
Yet she’ll be re-elected when the time comes and call the businesses and people that fled the killing fields of Chicago “RACIST.”
The democrats have been blaming every other state in the union for their malfeasance. They have done absolutely nothing to solve their gun problem and blame everyone else while they sit on their hands. Mayor Lightfoot is just carrying on a democratic tradition. There is no state anywhere in the United States that does not have background checks. There is no state in the union that does not have gun control, yet no place is as bad as Chicago. Why? How long has it been run by democrats? Perhaps that is the answer!
“The guns come from the hood in Gary Indiana, so why isn’t the homicide rate there higher than Chicago?”
Guess again.
...Chicago ranked 14th among cities with at least 100,000 people in 2017. Its 653 murders, measured against a population of more than 2.7 million, translated to a murder rate of 24.1 homicides per 100,000.
...The Gary IN murder/homicide rate for 2017 was 63.32 per 100,000 population,
It’s quite the town!
“Makes no difference as long as Shitcago has a communist Soros backed rat prosecutorette.”
Careful what you say!
You might lose your spot on page two!
And they will be at your home with pitchforks and incendiary devices.
All those states with more guns than Chicago don’t have the shootings that Chicago does.
Guns are not the problem.
It’s quite the town!
More than you could ever imagine.
A friend that had the misfortune to work in Gary was stopped heading home late one night.
His first thought was a shakedown.
No, the coppers were very helpful and told him NOT to stop and sit waiting at the light if possible.
At a red light stop, check for any traffic and move ahead check again and proceed.
Stoping late at night is asking for trouble.
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