Correlation doesn’t equal causation. So while “common sense” tells us that cities with draconian gun control laws suffer from higher levels of gun violence than cities where concealed carry is allowed, we have to resist the urge to—hold on. Has anyone read John Lott’s book More Guns, Less Crime? If it’s hard evidence you want, there it is. Just make sure you get a degree in statistics before reading. Meanwhile, the rest of us can only shake our heads at the violence in urban “gun-free” zones (i.e. cities where it’s virtually impossible for a law-abiding citizen to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms). “Nineteen people were shot across the South and West sides from Thursday evening through early Friday morning — 13 of them wounded over a 30-minute period,” chicagotribune.com reports. Need I say more? Well yes, actually . . .
The standard response to soaring levels of gun crime: blame someone.
Some blame the cops for not doing their job. The cops say they’re under-resourced and ask for more men. Some blame the politicians for sitting on their hands. They say their hands are tied and ask for more power. Some blame society; society doesn’t say squat. Some blame the criminals. The criminals do what criminals do. And so on.
Curtailing gun crime is not about assigning blame. It’s about everyone in the societal food chain accepting responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof.
The Chicago police must take responsibility for the effectiveness of their internal and external policies (not torturing people was a good start). Chicago politicians must take responsibility for defending the United States Constitution (which is pretty clear on that whole gun rights deal). Society—as in each individual within society—must take responsibility for its own safety.
Concealed or (ideally) open carry is an excellent way for society to deter and shield itself from criminality. Not to go all Death Wish, but guns are also pretty handy for punishing those who would prey on its weakest members. As I’ve suggested many times civilian firearms foster a spirit of lawfulness and responsibility that no police force can provide.
There’s that word again. Of course Chicago’s criminals must accept responsibility for their actions; the community, police and pols must force them to do so. Bad guys shouldn’t be able to game the system; good guys shouldn’t allow the system to fail under the weight of numbers.
And there you have it: the recipe for a relatively safe and functional American city. As seen throughout the United States in cities where citizens exercise their Second Amendment-protected rights.
Saying that, there’s always crime. And it’s hard to separate cause from effect. Are these cities safer because armed citizens are the inherently less prone to put up with (indeed vote for) corruption, or are they less tolerant of corruption because they’re armed and thus empowered?
If I’d have to guess I’d say yes. Anyway, who cares? Chicago is a cesspool. Why not “let” law-abiding Americans in the Windy City exercise their lawful right to keep and bear arms and see what happens? It couldn’t be any worse than it already is and maybe it would get better.
Take that mikeb somethin somethin… This is how gun control works. And you want this for the whole country?
13 shootings in 30 minutes. if these were seperate incidents it would take a huge number of cops to cover them all as well as emt’s and ambulances. in these tight times the funds don’t exist for the needed manpower and equipment. only 2 courses to take, completely ban guns, ain’t gonna happen, or see reason and allow LAW ABIDING citizens the right to carry.
But Robert taking responsibility is too obvious it there has to be another way.
Saying that politicians should re-think their policies and recognize what works and what doesn’t is assuming, for one, that politicians WANT what works. Specifically, what works for the citizen.
I’d say the situation in Chicago is working perfectly for corrupt tyrants like Rahm. Ensuring an endlessly dependent, frightened, poor, and ill-informed public ensures that said people will keep re-electing the same tyrants so long as said tyrants divert the real issues and dole out empty promises. After decades of being treated like subjects, with any semblance of personal defense and responsibility demonized and swept from their psyches, what do we expect from Chi-town subjects except the same cycle of failure?
Hard-line progressivism demands that the citizenry be poor and dependent. Rahm is doing exactly what his ideology requires of him.
“It couldn’t be any worse than it already is and maybe it would get better.”
^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^
The Chicago police want more resources and the politicians want more power. Neither group trusts and respects the masses of citizens. Let’s face it the Chicago elites probably look down upon the average person with contempt. It’s an ego thing. A superiority complex believing they (the elite) are better than others. If they were actually concerned with lives of Chicago citizens and innocent human beings they would have made guns legal and provided extensive training classes to the public. I don’t find these anti-gun grabbing politicians dumb. Rather I think they are simply immoral, unethical, opportunistic, insensitive to the suffering of the people, and obsessed with power.
Being near an urban center we have seen crime increase. While much is gang related, it is still quite disturbing. Now my understanding, I have no source, that nationally violent crime is at an all time low. This seems rather odd if you take into consideration all the news on folks and their gats going at it.
Now if you use John Lott’s logic here.. No I haven’t read the book although I plan too. 🙂
We have a number of factors at work.
States as a whole, based on a previous TTAG post, have been leaning more shall issue than not. We still have a few hold outs, but it is getting there.
So at a national level we are seeing crime go down as the option of carrying a piece, and the implementation of Castle and SYG laws are being implemented.
So now we go to the hot beds of our society. Oakland CA, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, even San Jose CA, to name a few.
All of these places have a few things in common. first off they all have strict gun laws in place at the state level at minimum.
Next up is they are all urban centers with higher than normal unemployment in many cases.
All of these places all have strong gang activity which is accompanied by the usual, drugs, and prostitution etc.
All of the subjects, I mean citizens are pretty much reliant on a police force which is understaffed, and over burdened. Chicago also has a distinct corruption issue, but that is a different conversation.
So people need to take care of themselves period..
Unfortunately, as you mentioned, the gun laws in all those places do not allow the people to take care of themselves. Their strict gun-control laws caused the problem by disarming the people (creating a city-wide gun-free zone), and the longer those same laws remain in place, the longer the people will be prevented from solving the problem. The only way to solve the problem is at the election box or in the courts (unfortunately the state supreme courts and federal appellate courts in those regions are not very gun-friendly.)
In the end, one must admit that the people suffering the most from gun violence are the very ones who caused the problem by electing anti-gun people to represent them. Until the people change their attitudes on guns, the problem will never be solved. Since the people caused the problem; let the people deal with it.
Good post.
The Chicago politicians have no reason to change policies as long as they get re-elected. It is only when the media compares the high crime rate of Chicago to self-defense cities that things will change.
Me, I don’t think the media is that smart.
The Chicago media has drunk the koolaid. It is rabidly anti-gun.
It is no suprise to me that the home of the USACP, Saul Alynsky, Bill Ayers, Rahm Emanule and Ol’ Barry is rapidly descending into a 3rd World, PAW state that will soon make Mexico look mild, Hati look good and Detroit darn delightful.
The Commie In Charge is useing Chicago as a Beta Test, this is the plan for every major US city; Overwhelm The System, destroy the infrastructure, impoverish the nation.
Check-out “Communism’s 45 Goals in the USA circa 1963” as printed in the Naked Communist, you’ll find that 85% of those goals have been completed
I don’t think CCW will make much of a difference in Chicago. These large body counts are the result – for the must part – of open gang warfare. John Q. Upstandingcitizen isn’t getting shot by the truck load every weekend in Chicago.
I would also bet good money that not only the shooters were armed but a good chunk of the victims were as well. If you watch the video it appears that one of the intended victims managed to get a few shots off and hit their assailant.
While I don’t think CCW would hurt I really don’t think it would help much.
I say this as an ex-Chicagoan and someone taking a CCW class this weekend.
BTW – if you want some good dish on chi-town violence I recommend the Second City Cop blog. Good stuff. Go Chalkie!
Culture eats strategy for lunch.
When Chicago starts getting body counts in Lincoln Park or the Loop during business hours or Near North etc … comparable to the south or west side ghettos you’ll see a culture change on CCW. As long as it’s minority gangbangers getting shot up who cares? That’s the thinking and culture
I’m also ex-Chicago and burbs. Agreed that as long as shootings are (mostly) gang bangers and minorities most people don’t care.
As a lifelong resident of one of the aforementioned neighborhoods, you’re correct on all points. As of right now nearly all of this are gang bangers engaging in open warfare. The affected neighborhoods have been and likely always will be complete hellholes.
As wk said, the truth is no one in the better parts of town or the burbs much care if black youths want to take out other black youths.
I second Second City Cop as well. Excellent daily read for locals.
And what’s wrong with that line of thinking??? These are young black males and females whose parents don’t care about them. It is a sad situation that some minority communities in the U.S. have never lifted themselves from the bottom rung of the ladder and this comes from generations of politicians and preachers telling them they are victims and they are being repressed by “the evil white man”. Funny this is all happening in the hometown of Jesse and Farrakhan and under the leadership Rahm ” Chick Fil A does not share Chicago’s values”Emanual
As sad as it sounds, you are right; we law-biding, hard-working, tax paying members of society do not care one bit about gang bangers killing each other at an impressive rate, as long as their violence does not spill over into our communities. As long as you urban dwellers continue to follow the”Reverend Charlatans ” of the world and vote for the politicians who tell you, you are victims and you need the government to help you make it through life; you reap what you sew…
I live just south of Chicago, and my wife works there. She takes public transit into the city. Downtown is not so bad, really, but much of the south and western neighborhoods are mostly controlled by gangs and lightly patrolled by police. The police are afraid to go into some of those neighborhoods.
I wish we had laws more like Indiana, since living outside the city (even only 30 miles away) is like living on a completely different planet. The laws here are onerous, we’re not allowed to own most NFA items, even if we have the stamp, and even black powder guns are regulated the same as center fire.There are no C&R exceptions in Illinois, either, as far as I know. It really kind of sucks if you like to shoot.
I think Chicago is a hoot. It must really be inspiring to live there. Liberalism at it’s Finest!
“Curtailing gun crime is not about assigning blame. It’s about everyone in the societal food chain accepting responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof.”
Well said.
Politicians and society as a whole too often want “quick fixes” and don’t consider that the solutions to our problems are going to take hard work and everyone doing their fair share.
The control freaks often say that the guns in Chicago came in from states with looser laws. That may be so, but it does raise the following question: Why aren’t people in those better states shooting each other up at the same rate?
But the real question is why those evil guns, with their malicious desire to cause harm, insist on travelling several states over to do their wickedness.
Has anyone checked to make sure this wasn’t just a group of NYPD officers in town for a convention or something like that? I thing that would be both correlation and causation.
And the chief of police has said that the problem was started with the Pilgrims…. Really, he did..
Rahm and his fellow Machine cronies make a living off this kind of violence. It keeps the people agitated, frightened and dependent. Meanwhile, if the gangs keep on killing each other, there may be fewer and fewer of them, which will allow the Machine ultimately to claim victory.
It worked for both Daleys. It will work for Emanuel, too. It’s too bad, but in the end, the people always get the government they deserve.
It’s sad that a war was fought and too many men died following General Washington for me to read a debate on gangs killing each other. You people are missing the point, and the point is the 2nd Amendment that our forfathers died for. Either most of you are idiots, or you have not read The Bill of Rights. Nor do you understand the Constitution of the United States. I forgot one other reason, you probably just don’t care which defines your character, and your belief in this country.
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