Chicago’s Murder Epidemic

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Chicago’s Murder Epidemic Complicates Obama Gun Ban Pitch

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/15/chicagos-murder-epidemic-complicates-obama-gun-ban-pitch/#ixzz2KzGyPW8z

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness…” -- Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago.”

How tough are Chicago’s gun laws?

A 55-year-old woman who works as a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago was jailed this week for bringing a pistol -- licensed, unloaded and in a case – to her office.

The woman, who also holds an “Illinois firearm owners registration card,” told Chicago police that she had brought the handgun, recently purchased for home defense, to her workplace because she did not want to leave it at her residence while a work crew was there doing a renovation project.

But Chicago has perhaps the toughest gun laws in the nation and carrying the weapon, even without ammunition, is a serious offense.

A co-worker spotted the pistol case and called police who came and snatched up the information specialist from her workplace. The Chicago Tribune reports that the woman was held on $25,000 bond pending trial and placed on leave by the university.

Not too far away on the city’s West Side, Chicago Police were having less luck in dealing with another crime that day than they did with the case of the pistol packing information specialist.

An unidentified male was found stabbed to death in an alleyway, marking the 50th murder in the city so far this year. The victim was later identified as a 22-year-old from across town in Calumet City, but given the low rate at which the city’s 535 murders last year were solved, it looks unlikely that police will soon be identifying the one who did the stabbing.

President Obama is back in his hometown today to make another pitch for his “cradle to career” educational initiatives. But while he’s in town, the president will surely have to address the murder epidemic that has gripped the city.

It’s not that Chicago rivals murder wastelands like New Orleans or Detroit, but what’s happening is very alarming for locals. While murder rates in the nation continue to decline, Chicago has seen sharp increases. While murder rates in New York dropped to an all time low last year, Chicago was approaching numbers not seen since the crack wars of the early 1990s.

So why is Chicago unraveling while New York is stabilizing? It’s hard to say exactly, but the city’s mayor, a former congressman, a former chief of staff to Obama and a potential future presidential contender, believes he knows. Rahm Emanuel has gone to war on guns.

Emanuel is doing everything he can to get the guns out of his city, taking up the cause with new vigor following the mass shooting in Connecticut last year.

While murder rates in New York dropped to an all time low last year, Chicago was approaching numbers not seen since the crack wars of the early 1990s.

But as the jailed University of Illinois at Chicago researcher can attest, the gun laws are already pretty darn stiff. Remember, it’s not as if the police discovered the mix up and told her to take her gun home, they took her to jail for having a licensed, registered weapon that without ammunition was only about as deadly as a desktop stapler.

And one could hardly blame her for her recent purchase of the weapon given the deteriorating security situation in her neighborhood and the city at large. It’s not just murders. Shootings, robberies and other crimes are all up in the city, with shopkeepers and homeowners demanding protection.

As for her ignorance of the city’s gun laws, well, one supposes she understands now.

Emanuel urgently needs to stem the crime wave in his city. His political future and the city’s economic fate depend on erasing the growing perception of Chicago returning to its most lawless days, the era of Cabrini-Green and the crack wars. And at the very least he needs to demonstrate that it is gun makers who are more to blame than he, whose mayoralty has coincided with the crime wave.

The question for the president is whether he can make the case that a national gun ban would be effective in reducing murder rates given the results in Chicago.

And Now, A Word From Charles

“This isn't just any new entitlement. It's an entitlement that we know the $7 billion a year that we spend on Head Start doesn't make any difference after the third grade. There is a study that HHS has done that shows that. It's a failure, and yet he wants to double down to make it universal. That is probably a definition of a liberal.”

-- Charles Krauthammer on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/15/chicagos-murder-epidemic-complicates-obama-gun-ban-pitch/#ixzz2KzH4kOgr

[^_^ 5,021]

Rahm is wasting his time with the witch hunt on guns. Most guns used in Chicago's "murder epidemic" are purchased outside Chicago either in gun stores run legally just outside city lines or from the historically black parts of Mississippi where so many of Chicago's urban families still have familial links.

[Darnell 8,478]

It's all Rahm's fault, and the Pres knows this. A public flagellation of Rahm by the Big Cheese is called for, I'm a thinking. Nothing else worked, so far.

[X Factor 1,110]

It's all Rahm's fault, and the Pres knows this. A public flagellation of Rahm by the Big Cheese is called for, I'm a thinking. Nothing else worked, so far.

Actually it is Chic Fil A fault

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Actually it is Chic Fil A fault

Well the leftanistas had it right. Chick-Fil-A darn sure does not share the values of Chicago.

[Danno 1,228]

[quote name=' timestamp='1360946944' post='5982045]

Rahm is wasting his time with the witch hunt on guns. Most guns used in Chicago's "murder epidemic" are purchased outside Chicago either in gun stores run legally just outside city lines or from the historically black parts of Mississippi where so many of Chicago's urban families still have familial links.

When you have a problem such as Chicago has, the leader must be doing "something" to address it.

When you have a population of people where they

1. enjoy killing each other at much greater rates than most areas

and

2. That same community will not even co-opporate with police when they see or know something.

There is not much hope unless you turn the place into more of a police state.

Any suggestion what Rham should be doing?

[slim 1,514]

Any suggestion what Rham should be doing?

Stepping down as mayor first and then paving the way to make legal gun ownership easier for everyone in the city. More guns = less crime.

[Danno 1,228]

Stepping down as mayor first and then paving the way to make legal gun ownership easier for everyone in the city. More guns = less crime.

I don't know that that is a hard and fast rule.

It depends on the make up of the population under question.

Could we assume that putting more guns in japan would lower their crime rate even lower than it is?

Or were we to hand out guns in prison, would that help reduce crimes in there?

Crime is a reflection of that community and this is why when speak of crime in "Chicago" we misspeak as most of that crime comes from certain areas in chicago and what do those area excel in?

A:Single mothers.

Research shows that single mothers want the best for their kids but are much more likely to fail at producing productive, responsible citizens.

Doesn't mean that single moms can't produce productive kids, but without a doubt when you have communities and neighborhoods of single mothers..... you are going to have a dysfunctional environment for the germination of criminals.

In a free society where guns can be procured, and their culture glorifies violence, even to women.... it's lights out..... I don't care what you do.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

it takes a village, to find an idiot.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

it takes a village, to find an idiot.

On VJ it's much easier.