“Since last Thursday, at least 103 people have been wounded, which includes those dead, in Chicago from gun violence,” chicago.cbslocal.com reports. Ascribing the body count to “gun violence” makes it sound like the victims were struck down by some kind of ballistic cancer. From there it’s a short step to calling guns the killer cells creating this “disease.” In fact, gun violence is people shooting people. In Chicago it’s mostly African-American people shooting African-American people late at night/early in the morning over something to do with drugs. Which makes it alright. For the politicians, anyway . . .
Because the real source of the pols’ power lies outside of the inner city’s economic black holes. It lies within the mostly white Chicago suburbs, where the police do a damn fine job of protecting the Windy City’s movers and shakers (including the politicians themselves) from urban gang-bangers.
True story. The “thin blue line” stops Chicago’s vicious criminals from invading the ‘burbs to prey upon mostly white residents with the same violence and thuggery as they practice in their home turf. The perps know that the city more-or-less tolerates them as long as they stay in their cage. Venture outside and the po-po will SWAT them like a fly.
In fact, you could say that Illinois’ gun control—laws that prevent Americans in crime infested neighborhoods from exercising their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms—create a deadly form of apartheid.
Rich mostly white people remain relatively unmolested, protected by the cops’ guns and the threat of overwhelming force. Poor mostly black people are left to their own devices. Disarmed. Sure Chicago’s African-Americans have their “own” police force. But that force is no match for the criminals quarantined within their part of the city. Clearly.
Look at the media-friendly firearms-related KSI (Killed and Seriously Injured) statistics. But don’t forget to look at Chicago inner city crime stats in general; there are hundreds of crimes against “average” citizens. Click here for a run down on Zip Code 60609. Sure there are plenty of narcotics offenses. But there’s also theft, vandalism, trespass and deceptive practice.
And this is one tiny slice of the City during a limited time window. And these are just reported crimes.
If law-abiding members of Chicago’s African American communities want the same kind of safety enjoyed by their wealthier fellow citizens, they have to reclaim their right to armed self-defense and make their neighborhoods a no-go zone for the gang bangers. They have to take back the streets.
I’m not arguing for vigilantism. I’m arguing for armed deterrence and steadfast self-determination. And don’t talk to me about how it’s the government’s job to create or ensure economic and educational equality so that the black community can rise above the rampant criminality plaguing their communty.
God made man. Samuel Colt made them equal.
It sounds to me like you’re insinuating that gun control is racist. You like guns, therefore, you must be a Confederate flag waving, racist, OFWG with three whole teeth who lives in a trailer park in lower Alabama. How dare you call the good politicians of Chicago racist. Oh, wait, sorry. We were talking about Chicago right?
(/sarc off)
You mean to tell me the cops are protecting white neighborhoods and not black ones? If our police force did that here in Atlanta, Jesse Jackson would be on us like white on rice.
(edit button appeared at a good time)
There are white neighborhoods in Atlanta?
Believed it or not, yes. But I always see more cops in the non white neighborhoods.
There are plenty of cops in almost exclusively (>90%) black neighborhoods, than white or mixed neighborhoods, if I remember correctly. It is those almost exclusively black neighborhoods where the vast majority of shootings take place. Another thing is that the strip mall reverends get to choose who the district commanders are, which means affirmative action is in place in this neighborhoods. Check out the archives at secondcitycop.blogspot.com for more info.
Plenty of cops with cushy union bennies to take statements and examine evidence _after_ you’ve been shot for your sneakers. But who gives a crap about brown people? As long as the coffee is fair trade and the organic arugula is fresh..
I disagree with this analysis.
As a biracial man who lived in the north side of the City of Chicago,ill just say that there’s a little bit of violent crime in *every* part of Chicago.The thugs who shoot each other on the south side don’t care enough about the northern enclaves to start trouble,but there’s plenty of crooks to keep things equally lively everywhere.You simply don’t hear as much about violent crime in the Gold Coast because the city management has a stake in cooking the books to make things seem safer for the tourist and business crowd.Get mugged on Michigan Avenue,and watch your violent assault become “petty theft-less than $500”.
There’s a system of Aparteid alright,but its a dividing line between the law abiding victims and criminals in city government and private practice .Think less discrimination,and more like the Eloi vs Morlock dynamic-and the Morlocks run the City Government.
I could only wish there was a system of apartheid here. Go to North Ave beach, you’ll see plenty of blacks causing trouble.
“create or ensure economic and educational equality so that the black community can rise above the rampant criminality plaguing their ranks.”
Unfortunately, it is impossible to “create or ensure economic and educational equality” in a community where crime is rampant. Therefore the only way to get to a solution for the problems of the inner cities is for the community to first “rise above the rampant criminality plaguing their ranks.” This can never happen when the only ones with the weapons are the criminals.
The inner city must stop voting for gun control, because it is their votes that are keeping them down. I find it difficult to pity them, because it is their own stupid decisions that put and keep them there.
The black community will never “rise above the rampant criminality plaguing their ranks” as long as they continue to idolize, defend, and create the criminals. You have generations of black children with no fathers, being raised by mothers not much older than they are, whose only male figures are pimps, gang members, and drug dealers.
They don’t want the crime problem solved. They hate the police, and will stand up for any piece of garbage criminal who loses a confrontation with the cops.
There was a case in Tampa—16 year old Javon Neal was firing a shotgun in the streets. Cops were called, they pursued Javon, who pointed a shotgun at them, and was then shot and killed. The community went NUTS. Demonstrations, the Black Panthers out in force, threats of violence, threats of lawsuits—because some gangbanger with a shotgun committed suicide by cop.
Why bother? It wouldn’t matter if the entire police force was black, they would still cry racism and oppression. I believe it’s hopeless.
Therefore the only way to get to a solution for the problems of the inner cities is for the community to first “rise above the rampant criminality plaguing their ranks.”
This can only happen when people stop moving out of the ghetto. Segregation would have ensured there might actually be a upstanding person in the ghetto for those bangers to look up to.
CCW won’t fix the problems in the ghetto, most of the calls for gun control come from the babbies momma in the ghetto. They wouldn’t carry guns if they could. All CCW does is enable whitey to protect himself from flash mobs.
The Inner City will never in THIS generation vote for right to carry.
For one, the few men around in the ghetto are too busy hustlin’ to pay their way.Its a generational thing now;guys who started selling drugs back in the 70’s have had kids ,who devoid of quality parental guidance -or worse , grew up with mom gettin’ high and dad slingin’-have grown up in ‘the game’, and all they know about life is the drug business.On and on the cycle repeats, never to end. If these guys cared enough about the straight and narrow to go to school, the business world would be shocked at their business acumen. But for lack of anyone around to actually raise the kids, all they know is violence.
Thus, what we consider “abnormal” is just another day in the world for millions of Chicago residents. Those ghetto dwellers don’t see anything wrong with getting shot in the course of earning a living, and they think even less of having to kill someone else.Thus the anti-police attitude;what business is it of Officer Friendly that so-and-so got shot? He was dealin, and got clipped. Justice? Law? Order? You may as well be speaking Old High Vulcan to these unraised savages.
Solving the violence will take more than Right To Carry, but concealed carry in Chicago would go a long way toward deleting the most defective members of the Windy City’s gene pool.
Business as usual in Chicago. People who continually vote for gun control even in the absence of evidence that is doing any good, and against piles of evidence showing that gun control ISNT doing any good. Sorry Im not sorry that that Chicago has a crime problem.
Business as usual in Chicago. People who continually vote for gun control even in the absence of evidence that it is doing any good, and against piles of evidence showing that gun control ISNT doing any good. Sorry Im not sorry that that Chicago has a crime problem.
“In fact, gun violence is people shooting people. In Chicago it’s most African-American people shooting African-American people late at night/early in the morning over something to do with drugs. Which makes it alright. For the politicians, anyway . . .”
Good analysis, and provocative… racism and gun control? (OH NOES!) It’s a dimension to 2A rights discussion that isn’t discussed often – how because of the history of institutional racism and policing, many minority communities were left on their own to defending themselves from crime – Italians, Irish, Chinese, etc.
Historical anecdote: during the LA riots where the only thing that saved many Korean-American owned businesses after the police bugged out to keep Beverly Hills safe and pretty were Korean American themselves, who armed themselves with shotguns, rifles, and pistols after barricading their storefronts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzkBGQx3HAc
I feel sorry for the people of Chicago…
Politics aside, the article at the link is probably one of the worst pieces of writing I have ever had to suffer through. The local police log is better written.
I hope you mean the linked article . . .
But, when the police DO concentrate their efforts in the black neighborhoods, they live in terror that doing their job will result in riots, firing, destruction of their reputations, threats to their families, etc. If a police officer shoots and kills a black criminal, the neighborhood erupts with cries of racism, even if the deceased was the biggest piece of gangbanging crap ever to walk the South Side.
The police patrol the white areas because 1) they’re asked to, and 2) because they’re wanted there. The black residents of Chicago do not want the police to do their jobs.
Sometimes police work isn’t pretty. It’s like sausage making—you may enjoy the end result, but you really don’t want to see how it gets made. Cops may have to thump some gangbanger with a nightstick to get results. They may have to engage in “police brutality”, like they did in the old days. But if that happens, the “poor victim” will find a news camera and the media will have a field day.
Best case for Chicago is to wall off the South Side ala “Escape From New York” and let them fight it out.
The way I see it is that the politicians have taken the politically easy populist approach and morally cheap way out by blaming guns when it is they that lack the moral courage to say and do the right things. The pols and the concept itself of trying to socially engineer society by government intrusion is a failure. On one hand government needs to minimize itself and let people learn to be self-reliant and accountable yet the the process to do that can take generations assuming families and neighbors will start doing it asap and help each other. The more government intrudes the worse off economically America will become.
I’m not sure what the solution is for Chicago’s bad neighborhoods. There are lots of crazy, irrational, immature, reactive, drugged up, emotionally abused, and low-intelligence people there. Opening the flood gates to arming the Chicago masses in the bad areas scares the hexx out of me. Americans have lost touch with the old ways and old common sense. Society has fragmented thanks to feeminizm, politikal korrectness, worship of the individual, rejecting traditional ethics, etc. No matter what happens it is going to get nastier in America.
“… the concept itself of trying to socially engineer society by government intrusion is a failure.”
It depends on the desired outcome … which could be totally different from the stated objective.
Now, off to go make a new tinfoil hat.
Im sorry but the animals are off the hook the whole city is a cage with an open door. There are mobs of hundreds of youths marauding all over the touristy areas attacking people and robbing stores.
Reap what you sow.
Ah, the results of LBJ’s and the Democrat’s “Great Society ™” coming home to roost. Cordon “THEM”, you know, those people, off in their neighborhoods (and isn’t that an ironically funny use of the term neighbor-hood?). Redistribute the wealth just enough to keep the checks and EBT cards coming so they don’t get too uppity. Demotivate them from seeking upward mobility. Incentivize, praise and even subsidize self destructive, anti-social, self-defeating behavior. Always pimp the notion that the problems are somehow this great conspiracy by the big, bad, wicked overseers keeping “our people” down on the plantation.
All the Great Society ™ has done is create a kinder, gentler apartheid; as sinful and evil a repression as any seen in all of human history. Save for the fact that, for the most part, even the worst of our urban hell-holes are orders of magnitude better than many other places on the planet (think hot/cold, potable running water and indoor plumbing, ready access to relatively cheap and adequate food, shelter and health care, the lack of many diseases that afflict the developing world, cheap, almost universal telecommunications, free universal access to vast libraries of information, refrigeration, even plasma TV to watch the bread a circuses with. Still, We The People, have done a great and shameful disservice to many of our fellow man, our fellow citizens and often, our neighbors.
The tangle of political decisions, our own ancient prejudices and hatreds, the calculated compromises and the cynical, self-serving power ploys, and all of the other factors and vectors in this massive, multi-variable equation that’s lead to our current sad state of affairs, is far too lengthy and complex to address, let alone solve, in this forum. The cancer that’s eating the core of our blighted urban centers can be cured. The therapy will include decent, meaningful and valued jobs for those that seek them, real civil rights, the teaching of and adherence to the best principles that have lead to the best aspects of our civilization, rewards based on merit, not mere existence. Not everyone is going to make it, but with enough of the right work, in the right direction, things will get a whole lot better for most of us.
+1000
But wait, doesn’t that require work and effort? Isn’t it much easier to demonize something like guns, “wealthy” people (anyone making more than $30,000 per year), or conservatives?
This article is weird. There are a lot of children getting shot by stray gunfire, people are afraid to go outside, and the elderly are just afraid. There’s violence and crime all over the city – I think a man was robbed by someone on a bike with a gun on North Ave over the weekend. Crime is moving into the suburbs as those “healthcare issues” as Preckwinkle likes to call meth, coke, and heroin addiction are moving to the burbs.
Being the murder capitol of the US is bad for the city whether it affects someone personally or not. A decade or more ago, Chicago averaged 3 homicides a day for a yearly total of around 1,000. I think the fatalities would be even worse today if it were not for the advances in emergency medicine. Things are probably worse now than it was then. The numbers just don’t show it.
Will Snitches get Stitches be eliminated from unofficial policy in these neighborhoods or will the residents continue to protect criminals while living in fear of them? I think it will since brave residents have no means to defend themselves and most think gun control (applied to the rest of the world) is the answer.
Chicago is a giant experiment gone wrong, although they had the UK as an example. Detroit is bombed out pretty bad but doesn’t rise to the level of violence Chi town does.
These areas are war zones and it’s a shame people can’t leave easily. Detroit, Camden, and other failed cities eventually lost their population and Chicago may suffer the same fate.
How does Robert get 103 people? I reviewed the link and they are only listing 17 or so people since Friday … not that 17 is a stellar number either. So there were 86 victims on Thursday?
Something will have to give. The Census shows a huge shift in the populations of the US and the Greater Chicago area in particular – showing whites moving into the city and blacks embarking on what can only be called a “mass exodus” into the suburbs.
How will this effect these statistics and policy, I wonder.
WLS-AM here in Chicago had a news snippet this past weekend stating that over 80% of those shot refused to corporate with the police. What does that say when a huge majority of people SHOT refuse to help find the shooter? They know who shot them and are looking forward to payback.
But not to worry fellow residents! Tiny Dancer is cutting his DNC trip short to coordinate a viewing party at THE ONE’s campaign HQ for Thursday’s Gospel reading. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the crime wave and impending teacher’s strike.
In the same time frame, my firearms injured or killed noone. I’m guessing it is more of a gang problem than a gun problem.
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