In a recent Twitter thread, Cook County’s public defender office raised important concerns about gun control laws. They’ve identified a pattern of racism in the enforcement of such laws in Chicago, but can’t determine how bad the problem is or how to solve it without more information.
The area’s police departments are underreporting data, making it impossible to correct the issue.
Not only is there a racist pattern of enforcement of gun laws in Chicago. Traffic stops, searches and gun arrests are being underreported, making oversight impossible. https://t.co/IKJIjLnJbH
— The Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender (@CookCoDefender) August 3, 2022
People who have been against gun control have known about this problem for a long time. In much of the United States, gun control laws started out as Jim Crow laws, or laws that applied to the whole population in theory, but were only enforced against blacks and other racial minorities in practice.
The anti-gun crowd would like us to believe that in modern times the racism has somehow been removed from these laws, but we see time and time again that it has not, especially in blue states with strict anti-gun laws.
These states are allegedly “better” for minorities, because Democrats would have us believe that red states hate them, the LGBT community, and others, but in practice the opposite seems to be true.
One prominent example was the “stop-and-frisk” policy practiced when Michael Bloomberg (the funder of Everytown, Moms Demand Action and other gun control groups) was mayor of New York City. Under the guise of enforcing gun laws, over five million men, mostly black and Latino, were unconstitutionally searched. After leaving office, former Mayor Mike defended this overtly racist practice for years, claiming it was necessary to abuse minorities and violate their Fourth Amendment rights in order to preserve public safety.
It was only more recently, during his disastrous presidential run, did he abandon his defense of the policy. But that was also during a time of intense debate, protests, and riots over law enforcement practices, triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer.
‘Stop-and-frisk’ seems to be the policy now in force in Chicago.
Cook County’s public defenders are concerned that Chicago has implemented the very same policy Bloomberg operated in New York, and are trying to hide it from voters and criminal defendants whose rights have been violated.
In a piece at the Chicago Tribune, two public defenders go into greater detail about how Chicago’s version of “Stop and Frisk” works . . .
Black and brown people in Chicago are pulled over for minor traffic violations. Police officers then use the stop as a justification to search the person’s car for weapons. If officers find a gun inside the car that is not stored properly or without the correct paperwork, that person is arrested on suspicion of a felony.
Chicago isn’t New York, so the strategy had to be adjusted to work with vehicles rather than pedestrians. In most cases, people who get pulled over don’t get searched, but in the case of many minority drivers, police cook up bogus excuses for a search vehicles. Then the driver (and possibly passengers) are treated like a violent criminal for merely possessing a weapon that they have a right to possess under the U.S. Constitution.
In one particularly grievous example, a man unknowingly had a recently expired carry permit and was arrested instead of given a warning or otherwise treated as an honest citizen who wanted to follow the law, but made a paperwork mistake.
As gun owners already know, these unconstitutional searches and arrests target innocent gun owners, and have little effect on actual criminals or violent crime. And that’s exactly what the public defenders’ office is finding.
While the Cook County’s public defender has more some ideas, I think most readers would agree that the solution is to repeal anti-gun laws and focus enforcement on actual criminals. Illinois needs constitutional carry, not idiotic laws and enforcement practices that don’t affect criminals.
The party of the wealthy, the democrats, are terrified of armed POC. They want to make guns and permits so expensive that the poor cannot get them.
Fascism is in the white house now.
Democracy is by definition the voice of the many overruling (and thus lording over) the voice of the few…e.g. minorities being repressed by literal mob rule.
There’s a reason the KKK and slave-owners funded the Democratic party so fervently, they wanted to keep minorities out of power–in a true democracy, minorities have no power. That was their hard-line forever, until they realized they can manipulate minorities into helping them keep power (without really helping minorities out at all, simply placating them at a surface level).
This is why in a true democracy the minorities all get hosed.
That’s not to say the Republican party is full of saints, they’re mostly a-holes too, but at least don’t have that whole stain of slavery besmirching their foundations.
I’m not a fan of any parties, tbh, but that’s neither here nor there. I am a fan of *all* free peoples, regardless of purported “race” (all humans are the same race in my opinion, just different minor physical traits in various gene pools), being armed and capable of defending their lives, liberty and property… as well as being secure in their persons and personal effects as the Constitution legally recognizes.
This is the beauty that is America, or at least what America dreams and strives to be, that the individual, (being the smallest minority) is just as valuable than the majority. Our Republic was based on this idea, that the person and the voice are valuable on their own, regardless of their numbers.
Yeah, i know blame the Democrats.
Reality: States rights were the excuse of slave owners and in the 1800s to about 1960, that was the Democrats ploy or rather Dixiecrats as they were known after WWII. Note: State Rights were all good until the slaves escaped North – then suddenly the Southern states wanted slave owner rights imposed on the Northern states.
During the civil rights era 1960+, the Democrats became the party of equal rights and the Republicans became the party of states rights. In fact, some Republican controlled states voted to nullify the voting rights act of 1963.
Take another bong rip, dude. You’ve ALMOST got it!!
In other news, Dimocrats are liars, as well as deluded nincompoops.
Personally I could care less about things the public defender is worried about in Chiraq.
If there was any city in the US that needs broken windows policing and everything that entails its them.
But hey lets further curtail the cops ability to stop black on black gang violence because or racist policies that target black people. Clearly we need to increase stop and frisk on Asians and Whites…
Stop and frisk is a clear violation of the plain text of the Fourth Amendment.
Stop and frisk is Constitutional. When it was being done in NY, many of the cops weren’t doing it correctly and those cases should have been thrown out. Which of these cases did the cop actually violate the 4th Amendment? Is the public defenders statement your source? Sounds like fake news, or at least unsubstantiated.
“Minorities” are getting stopped and their vehicles searched more often, because they aren’t the minority in chicago. Especially when you go to the parts of town where the gun violence is high.
Although I agree with Constitutional Carry, that is currently not the law in IL. Maybe the gunowner shouldn’t have let his license expire and then violated the law, more than once.
Criminals do not have a right to prey on other citizens! The Second Amendment doesn’t change that.
You’re wrong ray.
Trend analysis is a thing…
Meh…Chiraq is run by black folks. And populated overwhelmingly by POC. It ain’t raciss if you’re IN CHARGE. It’s just corrupt.
32% dark. about the same pink.
That reminds me of the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. The knee-jerk reaction of the political leaders and the media was to blame anti-black racism. Yeah okay. Half of the officers involved were black. The police chief was black. The mayor was black. The DA was black. Blaming everything on racism is a way to avoid accountability for their own failures.
You just don’t understand. White supremacy and racism are so rampant that it makes Blacks racist against Blacks.
Unfortunately their answer to situations like this is to just start harassing white and asian people more. They always push for equal suffering rather than ease up on the oppressing.
We need equitable oppressing, Shire-man.
How can there be underreporting if people are being arrested and charged with crimes?
That has to show up somewhere unless charges are dismissed before an attorney/public defender is ever retained, the confiscation of the firearm being the punishment.
The searches in which they find nothing are underreported.
“Hey look at all the guns we found” vs. “We have a 5% success rate in search for guns”
Black and brown people are not “minorities” in Chicago, they aren’t minorities in the world, and pretty soon they won’t be minorities in the whole USA either. Chicago is only 31% white.
Stop saying “minorities” when what you really mean is nonwhites.
SEE:My comment!
Indian and Asian people make up the majority of the world’s population.
Yes, but the USA is not the world…
Don’t care. “Minorities” bought/paid for slaves of the demtard party.
FJB
Them dadgum mean police need to start Friskin’More of them mean white heavily armed Mormons And Catholic charity workers out on them bad streets!!…It’s obvious that those demographics are doing all the killing in chiganistan…
Ms. Sensiba, ever read Atlas Shrugged? Allow me to enlighten you about governments and criminals:
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”
yeah, no.
“evil only can be fought.” -chambers “witness”
no idealogues.
Yes, I’ve actually read that.
That was very specifically labeled as being about INNOCENT men.
What clever quotes do you have about GUILTY men driving around with illegally-possessed guns in their cars, looking for an innocent person to rob or a rival gang member to shoot? Making INNOCENT/LEGAL gun owners look bad, and fueling calls for more Gun Control?
We could say that they’re innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Not sure if that qualifies as a clever quote anymore.
Glad they’re going after the gangs. I couldn’t cate less about leftist public defenders’ crocodile tears.
Don’t fall for left wing narratives that actually clamping down on crime is racist
The problem is that they’re not going after gangs. They’re going after random people on the street and arresting people for having a recently expired carry permit.
If you read that tweet thread, Cook County’s public defender’s office supports this BS:
Increase health and healing among residents impacted by gun violence and reduce gun
violence by addressing the underlying trauma that shapes decisions to carry guns and the
harm caused by gun violence. (WTF?)
Increase and sustain investment in restorative justice practices (English translation? None.)
Actively address misinformation and redefine narratives (Huh?)
https://ilblueprintforpeace.org/#
Here’s a better idea:
Don’t drop out of school
Get a GD career
Don’t have kids if you’re not married
But, no, that means allegiance to yourself and family and not The State. Can’t have that.
The reason there getting searched is because they dont have a fast enough vehicle.
This has been during the run-up to midterm elections for basically every office in Illinois. Nobody that’s in office now that wants to still be in office in 2023 wants to run on a platform of setting records on heyjackass.com, so they put pressure on CPD, who in turn puts pressure on the community by finding probable cause for untied shoes and doing 30 in a 29 m.p.h. zone.
Everyone is watching out for their career path. Sh*t rolls downhill.
the polls takes their tolls.
they can spin it, but the lack of felony charges, never mind convictions, doesn’t exactly curtail the behavior.
Homie wears a felony like a badge of honor…Chiraq is not fixable.
As long as he wears in it prison, I don’t care.
Break the law, go to jail.
Break it enough times, STAY in jail. Forever.
Gun control is foundationally racist (as Deb W. will undoubtedly tell us), and continues to be foisted on us, and enforced, by the Leftist/fascists (for these purposes, read “Dimocrats”). In other news, water is wet, Michael Avenatti is a lying thief of a douchebag, and dacian the demented dips*** is an uneducated moron.
I know certain facts:
1. Virtually all crime problems, generally, and “gun” problems, specifically, occur in Dimocrat-run cities.
2. The Leftist/fascists are b****ing up a storm for MORE “common sense gun control” laws, that they will . . . selectively enforce, if they enforce at all. Lather, rinse, repeat.
3. No matter WHAT the outcome, the Leftist/fascists will cite it as evidence that they need “MOAR gun control!!!”.
And, yet, when called upon to point out WHICH recent gun crime would have been prevented by a proposed new law, they hem and haw and say, “Just because it wouldn’t have prevented THAT crime doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it!!”
They are morons, or liars (but embrace the healing power of “and”).
For the past 60+ years the people most harmed by these policies keep voting for the Democrats who create them. So I’m unclear what the problem is.
Stop and frisk is not unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held in Terry v Ohio that reasonable suspicion was sufficient to justify such an action. There was a federal judge in NYC who found it unconstitutional but she was about to be reversed when Bill DeBlasio t/n Warren Wilhelm became mayor and withdrew the city’s appeal.
This is not to say that there have not been unconstitutional searches. That’s why we have suppression hearings and civil rights actions in individual cases. The idea that the practice itself is unconstitutional is flatly false.
Correct.
This is Chicago.
The police are already hampered by a POC State’s Attorney (Kim Foxx) who will not prosecute any crime involving a POC unless the evidence is 100% airtight and even then she will find any excuse she can to plead it out or make it a misdemeanor vs. a felony or otherwise put someone in a “diversion” program where they promise to do right, yet a significant chunk reoffend within 6 months.
The POC Mayor (who is also a lesbian, hence her nickname “triple threat”) is anti-cop, any crime occurring on her watch is NEVER her fault, and is all too happy to go on TV to scream that people shouldn’t be committing the crimes that they do in Chicago. And everything is because racism.
Crime has been skyrocketing as a result. Shocker.
Illinois already makes it a felony to possess a weapon when you have a past conviction for a violent felony. Illinois has a massive gang problem in particular neighborhoods where the statistical odds are if you find someone armed, they have a felony record that precludes them from having a firearm. So if the police are using “data driven” tactics, not a surprising that they are finding people to arrest. It is a target rich environment.
You would think the racism charge might matter for Democrats looking at gun laws. Nope.
After this happened, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/chicago-release-video-police-shooting-13-year-old-boy-2021-04-15/, the Latino legislator whose district this occurred in did an impassioned speech about how this poor kid was murdered by cops (why the kid was out at 2 am shooting randomly at cars was of no apparent moment). The kid’s reported gang name in local media (based on Facebook screen shots) supposedly was some iteration of “little killer,” or “little devil,” though Snopes claims the kid was not definitely established to be a part of the Latin Kings.
So don’t count on that POC communitay to take the issue seriously.
Further, the suburban white gun control moms are votes the Dems in the state legislature need to keep their massive legislative majorities. These women get elected by ginning up terror within other white suburban moms (including courtesy of Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, etc.) that their kids are going to be shot up at school by weapons of war. Hence they demand more “ban all the guns” legislation too.
I suspect you would find many R’s and downstate D’s who are sympathetic to this issue. They will never have majority funding, manpower, or political power in the Illinois chambers in the present climate.
*sigh* This reads like a boilerplate “let’s-own-the-liberals” post…or a knee-jerk hot-take out of Reason magazine. Does the author of this post really believe that Chicago PD after all these decades of accusations and fallout since the days of the Daly machine at least – during a city administration headed and staffed by Lightfoot some hotbed of racist cops? Jebbus H….this is QAnon territory.
Could there possibly be a reason for racial asymmetric enforcement of the existing gun laws other than racial animus? Living far away for a major urban metro, I long ago stopped caring even the slightest bit about the effects of urban violence: I just assume based on the city management and political class freely chosen by the electorate of these cities…that they don’t give a damn or are so bigoted themselves that they refuse to believe their lying eyes. Either way, I do not care. But, while sitting high up in the stands and enjoying the spectacle, I would suggest the authors of this piece rethink their priors.
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