Learnaboutguns.com coverage of successful firearm “interventions” is relentless. The blogger never misses an opportunity to chronicle a homeowner who puts the castle doctrine into play. As I’ve said before, TTAG takes nothing fo’ shizzle. We’re always suspicious that there’s a story behind the story; some unstated details which would topple LAG’s anecdotal evidence from its moral high ground. But the man ain’t firing blanks. Case in point: a recent post compare and contrast post on two Chicago gun crimes. Specifically, “A pair of home invasions which both recently took place on the South Side of Chicago highlight the injustice (and ineffectiveness) of the Chicago handgun ban.” Read on . . .
A 31-year-old man was killed when two armed men entered a Far South Side home and tried to rob people there, police said. The incident happened about 12:30 a.m. in the 12400 block of South Michigan Avenue, said Chicago Police Officer Amina Greer. The armed men, both dressed in black, went into the rear entrance of the home and demanded money from people in the basement, she said. Cordney Jackson, who lives at the address, was shot in the chest when he confronted the men, police said. Police arrived to find Jackson unconscious. He died from his injuries. Calumet Area detectives are investigating the shooting.[Read the full story here.]
An off-duty Chicago police officer shot a burglar who broke into his South Side residence this morning, law enforcement sources said. The officer, who was inside the home when burglars entered the house in the 7600 block of South Vernon Avenue about 9 a.m., shot one of the suspects, the sources said. Shortly after the shooting, a man with a gunshot wound went to St. Bernard Hospital, and detectives were working this morning to confirm whether that man was the burglar who broke into the officer’s home.[Read the full story here.]
Both of these home invasions occurred on the South Side of Chicago, within about a day of each other. The key difference between the two cases is that one of the victims was an off-duty cop, who was allowed by Chicago law to have a gun for self defense, while the other victim was an ordinary Chicago citizen, whose disarmed and defenseless state was guaranteed by Chicago’s gun laws. While the off-duty cop was able to defend himself, the ordinary citizen was fatally shot by a criminal who ignored Chicago gun control laws, just as the criminal ignored the laws against murder, home invasion, and robbery. Sadly, this sort of injustice is nothing new – and I hope that the soon-to-be-decided McDonald v. Chicago case will rectify this unjust situation.
Sadly, the chances of a poor basement dweller South Side of Chicago has little chance of overcoming the financial and bureaucratic impediments to gun ownership—even if the ban is removed. Not to mention what would happen to a black man in the Chicago criminal justice system after he shoots a home invader.
