The city of Chicago is home to some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States and has been for decades. But somehow the murder rate there continues to be one of the highest in the nation. Go figure. Democrat mayor Rahm Emanuel was elected in 2011, and despite efforts to further restrict firearms within the city limits the situation hasn’t improved. In fact nearly 200 more people were shot go death in the Windy City in 2016 than the year before.

The usual media suspects are quick to blame — wait for it — guns for Chicago’s crime problems. The civilian disarmament activists at The Trace noted that Chicago’s murder rate is actually “normal” if you ignore firearms related deaths. As Dan pointed out in last night’s Digest, that’s like saying Michael Moore eats the same amount as anyone else each day…until he sits down to dinner.

The Trace fingers guns as the source of the problem. Some note that Chicago’s firearms laws have been relaxed in recent years, specifically extending licensed concealed carry to the windy city and easing handgun ownership restrictions through federal court rulings. Both of those changes, though, only apply to law-abiding properly licensed firearms owners who have passed a background check. According to Chicago officials, though, roughly 80% of the murders involving firearms are gang-related, perpetrated by people who can’t pass background checks and have zero regard for the law.

Mayor Emanuel has put together yet another proposal to try to combat this “scourge of gun violence.” It basically boils down to the Tarkin Doctrine — hiring hundreds of new police officers to patrol the streets. Some might argue that approach is doomed so long as the city maintains a catch-and-release legal system and continues to ignore the cultural factors contributing to the problem.

In a tweet the other day President-Elect Donald Trump provided an electronic dope slap to Mayor Emanuel, encouraging him to get his act together.

The MSM have interpreted this as Trump threatening to invade Chicago with federal troops, but in reality it seems to be a pretty common sense approach at least politically. People are dying in Chicago at an alarming rate. Mayor Emanuel has a responsibility to his citizens to maintain law and order and make the city safe.

If Emanuel can’t improve the situation with the resources available — and given his six-year track record, there’s no reason to believe he can — he has an obligation to the families of potential future victims of violence in his benighted city to get help where he can. While someone once noted that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” with new management coming to Washington, it may be worth a try.

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83 COMMENTS

  1. Instead of wasting taxpayer money on federal assistance, the first prototype wall should be built around Chicago. Lock the doors, walk away, let the problem solve itself.

  2. We’ve all heard that through the liberal media it’s everybody’s fault but the mayor and the people that live there that cause these problems. First by destroying law-abiding gun ownership and the Heritage that comes with gun ownership legality. They’ve completely destroyed the image of a law-abiding gun owner. Now every time you see a gun you automatically think gang member or someone that will hurt you which in fact is pretty true on the streets of Chicago. I’ve seen many a times statistics proving that it’s safer for a white Anglo-Saxon male to walk down the streets of Afghanistan and a military combat infantry uniform then it is for the same man to walk down the streets of certain parts of Chicago. And when you have a city mayor that constantly has a revolving door of convicted felons coming into jail and then shortly it there after being released unless they do something horrible that actually is covered by the liberal Progressive media then they throw the book at him. This man he’s a lost cause need to get rid of this guy and get someone in the office that can actually run a city correctly.

  3. I don’t know if more police in Chicago is really going to do anything. It seems like the typical brutish “Bash the problem with a club until it goes away” tactic that has been failing in the country for the last few decades.

    I’ll admit, I don’t know the solution to Chicago’s crime problems. I’m not from Chicago. I couldn’t expect to know. But it seems like a solution to the problem is to change the culture, somehow. A change in culture results in crimes not being committed in the first place, which results in not needing the extra police. I honestly wouldn’t know how to change it though.

    • Mr. Brown – I don’t know what the complete solution to Chicago’s murder culture is, either – but I’m pretty sure that federal intervention ISN’T it. What can the feds do? Flood the city with FBI, DEA, and BATFE agents? When it comes to forensics, nobody can hold a candle to the FBI – but when it comes to the street craft which any experienced cop knows, they are dismal. The feds would most likely be falling all over each other in their competition to outshine the other federal agencies involved.

      Hire more cops? That could have some impact, but it’s not that the Chicago cops aren’t locking people up, their dismal homicide clearance rate notwithstanding. They are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of murders and the unwillingness of the public to help them with the information they need to solve the crimes, either because of fear of retaliation or the pernicious effect of the “Stop snitching” paradigm.

      So what’s the answer? For some immediate relief, lock the revolving door which is the Chicago criminal justice system. The violent gang-bangers aren’t going to intimidate witnesses when they’re in prison. Lock them up and KEEP them in prison.

      • The Tiny Dancer visited Trump Tower about a month ago, such that I suspect there is more than meets the eye behind this tweet.

    • It’s been said in the main article and elsewhere here, but there is one solution that proves effective every time it’s used: Lock up the violent criminals. The cops in Chicago know who many of them are. Many have already been arrested on weapons charges. And the courts keep letting the criminals go.

      Just as the results of locking up violent criminals are reliable and predictable, the results of letting violent criminals run free are reliable and predictable. If Emanuel and other officials in Chicago don’t know this, they are either stupid or insane. If they do know it, keeping the city safe is not their true goal (or at the very least, not their highest priority). None of the alternative explanations listed above would give me much comfort if I lived or worked in Chicago.

      • I guess I have heard that said quite a few times. It’s just that I have never really seen anyone prove that solution works. They have never really gone into the laws to even show me that the catch and release type of justice system even exists. Nor have they really shown how keeping them locked up really reduces crime. It makes sense on the surface, but I need some proof.

        I guess it’s one area of the world that I am very ignorant on because it is so disconnected from my actual life. It always seemed like something people in Chicago must fix themselves. I’ll probably look into it some time, now.

    • That’s because “the club” has never been summary execution for anyone wearing gang colors, having gang tats, and you know, being a gang member.

    • The problem isn’t there aren’t enough police, it’s that the police are all from a single corrupt group.

      If Trump has the National Guard patrol Chicago for a bit (Coolidge did it in Boston before he was President) they’ll drop crime not because they’re extra cops, but because they lack the culture of corruption the CPD has.

        • It better be the IL governor, otherwise it is me that has to pay for it. Fork Chicago, until they clean up their own mess, a good start would be Constitutional carry, unless somebody thinks all their gun control is keeping any bangers from getting guns!

    • Neighbor hoods composed of neighbors, who actually care about each other, removes the need for policing.

      This does not require a homogenous society (although a homogenous society makes it substantially easier) – it merely requires decent values and respect for each other’s lives, liberty, and property.

      You know, basic stuff.

  4. The tiny ballerina can’t and won’t do anything about it. He won’t get elected again if his voter base is in jail.
    Going on 6 years in office, and violence has gone up almost every year. As long as it stays south of the loop they won’t do anything.
    Hiring more officers may help a little, but also has the potential to backfire in a big way.
    Also who is going to pay for the officers salaries?
    Illinois is just about broke.
    The sales tax and property tax here are very high.
    They just finished a new 7 mile long expressway by my house. 7 miles and it’s $1.30 in tolls.
    The taxes and tolls are pushing people out of the state.

    • If I were unemployed I would appreciate the city hiring 1000 more cops! I would apply enthusiastically! But I would not be answering domestic calls, and would not be found within a half-mile of gang territory. IOW, more cops would have zero effect. How ’bout this for a suggestion; to help them out in Chicago, all violent felons being paroled, anywhere in the US, should be actually released in Chicago, and issued a revolver and 6 shots. That quantity of recently rehabilitated upstanding citizens should get the city straight within a few months!

  5. “The city of Chicago is home to some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States” as long as TAG keeps up this lie, I will keep calling them on it. FOID, $10 for 10 years, can be done online. No gun registration. Handguns 72 hours wait . Shall issue CCL. NO HANDGUN LIMITS, LONG GUNS ARE HARDY USED IN MURDERS SO LONG GUN LAWS DON’T MEAN ANYTHING. Might as well talk about the speed limit on Lake Shore Drive.

      • None on handguns, 15 on long guns. LONG GUNS ARE NOT USED IN CRIMES!!!. The speed limit is 45 on Lake Shore drive, has same effect on crimes.

    • Pennsylvania: No FOID, No waiting period. What you are ok with a card saying that you are ok to exercise your right to own a gun? You like waiting 72 hours for a reason you know does not exist? Inch by inch, foot by foot, they wont stop…

      • I’m not OK with it. But I has NO effect on gangs (other than the guy with the clean record needs to make two trips to the gun store)

    • Really? So, every ordinary person in Chicago is perfectly free to buy, keep and carry a handgun any way they wish? How many gun stores in Chicago, just for the sake of curiosity. Why all the permits and “cards” and registration (that’s background checks by another name)? What is the bottom line cost for all that bureaucratic nonsense? Poor people have no problem with that?

      And if someone does manage to jump through all the hoops, do they have any chance in hell of returning to anything near ordinary life after the cops and courts (and lawyers) get done with them after a self defense incident? Really?

      Not that these things are not true in far too many other places, of course. But Chicago is certainly one of the bad places to be if you want to be prepared to defend yourself. And the predators of every kind know this well.

      • There are 10 gun stores within 10 miles. Some very big ones, 5 or more in door ranges, and you can carry ANY handgun without magazine restrictions with a CCL. Yes we have restricted places, but ALL states do. The only one I really hate is public transportation. (However if you get caught and are actually prosecuted, it is a misdemeanor fine that will not even kill your CCL the first time) And NO REGISTRATION of any firearm!!!!

      • As for self defense shootings (real ones) look at past case law and the actual law. then get back to me.

    • Binder is correct. Nick’s opening sentence is a lie. More infringements than Wyoming or Arizona? Certainly. But “some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States?” Pure bullshit.

      Let’s run down the checklist.
      Concealed carry? Yes. SHALL ISSUE permits.
      Magazine limits? Nope.
      California style “approved handgun list?” Nope.
      New Jersey style ban on hollow points? Nope.
      Gun registration? Nope.

      Yes, we have our infringements. FOID cards (over a million, by the way). Waiting periods (3 days for handgun). And way too many prohibited places (like public transportation). But I can lawfully carry on pretty much any real estate not owned by the government.

      Go ahead. Try to get a carry permit in NYC or New Jersey or L.A. or San Fransisco or Honolulu, then come back and tell me how Chicago’s laws are so strict.

      • Oh man I get tired of this BS too Binder and Curtis. It’s like everyone is retarded when they talk about Illinois(and Chicago). A lot changed in 2013-2014. KEEP UP idiots. But what would all of you whine about if you kept up? It ain’t perfect but easily workable. And I propose arming ALL the good folks in Chicago,death penalty reinstated,chain gangs and federalizing gun crime to “help” brokeazz Illinois. Oh and bounties on miscreant murderers. MY SOLUTION…

      • Are you saying the government issues a license which the government itself does not then honor? People let them get away with that? In TX you can skip the security line at the Capitol by showing your carry license, and carry your piece right on in! Of course, most of the legislators are probably armed, too. And we all know Rick Perry carries a SAA.

      • Curtis @ 11:04- “Concealed carry? Yes. SHALL ISSUE permits.”

        Not really shall issue. Anyone who applies for a carry license in Illinois is subject to objection from any police agency where they have ever lived, just because the cops feel like it. The objections are anonymous, the applicant never gets to face his accusers in court, and if he can afford a lawyer to fight the “administrative review” process (without any help from NRA, Inc.) then it goes to the unelected Star Chamber, formally known as the Concealed Carry Licensing Review Board. Here’s who sits on the Illinois CCLRB, I am not making this up:

        “one commissioner with at least 5 years of service as a federal judge; 2 commissioners with at least 5 years of experience serving as an attorney with the United States Department of Justice; 3 commissioners with at least 5 years of
        experience as a federal agent or employee with investigative experience or duties related to criminal justice under the United States Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Homeland Security, or Federal Bureau of Investigation; and one member with at least 5 years of experience as a licensed physician or clinical psychologist with expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.”

        WOW! Thanks Todd! I’m sure all these government hacks would not be biased for the police and against the average citizen!

        Illinois carry bill sponsor, Friend of Gun Owners & Gun Rights Hero to the ignorant hicks Brandon Phelps explained the Board in an interview, “we wanted to give them (police) the benefit of the doubt. There are thousands of of people who have been waiting for their license for over a year. No financial help from NRA.

        What do you expect from asswipes and clowns like Phelps and Vandermyde? They put Duty to Inform in their carry bill, and refused to take it out. Besides, the Board “won’t be a problem” if you’re a Good Old Boy, because “everyone knows me around here.”

    • FOID card says it all.

      Maybe Illinois should also require:

      Newspaper reader identification card (NRIC)
      Facebook user permission card (FUPC)
      Bible viewer license card (BVLC)
      Internet activity permission slip (IAPS)
      Exemption card allowing church attendance (ECACA)
      License to possess a personal library for all book owners (LPPL)

      Why would the state allow a person to practice their freedom of speech, the press, or religion, unless they have been properly vetted, and taxed ahead of time?

      • It’s $10 for 10 years, cheaper then the state ID you NEED TO VOTE WITH, that I would guess more than half the people here support.

        • I’ll grant that Illinois/Chicago has improved quite a bit in regard to firearm freedom. It is now clearly better there than in NY,NJ,CA,HI,DC (and maybe a couple more). The state is moving in the right direction (unlike Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado).

          I would say that the whole FOID system is still a serious infringement.

        • FOID card is an infringement, no argument. But it is not much of a barrier to gun ownership. If anything, the state police hate it when state reps start calling when they are late issuing cards

        • Voting is a privilege available only to US citizens without felony records. It is not a right.

      • “FOID card says it all.”

        Not really. But the fact that there are over 1 million active at this moment says something. And no doubt, the fact that number continues to grow is a source of anxiety for gun-hating Democrats.

        It’s an unconstitutional infringement. I don’t like it. But when it comes to gun rights, Illinois is still a lot closer to free than many states on the right and left coasts.

        • If anything the FOID system allows gang members to check to see if they can buy a gun without leaving the house.

    • FIOD card? You mean asking for permission and paying a tax to buy or obtain a tool protected from government infringement seems like freedom to you?
      They don’t need gun registration when they already have firearm owner registration!

  7. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Chicago gangsters murdering other Chicago gangsters in record numbers. It’s unfortunate, though, that the head gangster is the mayor.

  8. Robert, Nick and TTAG. Why does the gun rights community continue to say that Chicago has some of the strictest gun controls in the nation when it’s not the case anymore? The anti’s call us out on every little detail as a distraction even though it doesn’t change reality. We don’t need Chicago to make a point about the inefficacy of “gun control”. We can point to Camden New Jersey to Brazil to Switzerland or Vermont.

  9. My understanding is that Mayor Rahm pulled the cops out of at-risk neighborhoods to cut costs, to save money. That money was funneled to ‘crony capitalist’ developers in the Chicago Loop instead, via abuse of the Tax Incremental Financing mechanism (TIFs). TIFs were intended as a way to direct public money toward blighted neighborhoods, to create jobs in bad neighborhoods. TIF abuse occurs where that money is given to political cronies instead, as has occurred in Chicago under mayors Rahm and Daley. Dozens of elementary schools were closed in Chicago as well and other critical public services have gone neglected—all to finance Mayor Rahm’s buddies in the Chicago Loop. Police stops in the most violent neighborhoods came to a grinding halt. The number of gangland murders and shootings are inversely proportional to the number of police stops which, of course, is no surprise.

      • I’m a Chicago native. An at-risk neighborhood has bars on first-floor apartment windows. There’s an unwritten code that law-abiding people are off the streets by five p.m. Businesses, if any exist, put up their steel barriers to keep thieves out and then close up shop. The cops make themselves scarce around that time. That’s an at-risk neighborhood in my former home town.

  10. The case of Chicago’s crime-with-guns presents us (PotG, Constitutionalists) with an interesting dilemma. The President can’t send in Federal troops. At most, he can send in the ATF, FBI and US Attorney. (Presently, the US Attorney for the No. Dist. of IL has the lowest rate of prosecuting gun crime; coincidence?) While the President COULD prosecute Chicago crime-with-guns, SHOULD he do so?

    Let’s suppose that Chicago’s gun crime is normal, so far as it affects interstate travelers (businessmen, tourists). What is ABNORMAL is crime-with-guns among Chicago residents. How is it that this becomes a Federal issue? Isn’t this, by definition, a purely local problem? Isn’t it – at the highest legitimate level – a matter for the people of IL to resolve through their legislature and governor?

    Where is the Constitutional pretext for Federal intervention into an issue that is indisputably the discretionary exercise of a State’s police-power? Arn’t we obliged to presume that the popularly elected mayor/governor and councilmen/legislators are doing what their constituents WANT them to do?

    At best, I see one pretext. The US Constitution guarantees each State a “republican form of government”. Suppose – purely hypothetically, of course – that the President concluded that the governments of Chicago and IL were so hopelessly corrupt that they ceased to constitute a legitimate “republican” form of government. If Chicago’s problem manifested as an abuse of power under color of law (e.g., Battle of Athens) then I think the pretext would stand-up to scrutiny. But this isn’t the case at all. If anything, Chicago’s failure is in refraining from enforcing the law.

    Can we make an argument that Chicago is denying gang members the equal-protection-of-the-law from violence inflicted upon them by other gang members? If we could, should we do so?

    Can we make an argument that the guns used in Chicago’s crime had been the subject of interstate commerce? Or, that the victims’ injuries/death materially impacts on interstate commerce?

    I fear that any Federal intervention (including enforcing the felon-in-possession Federal law) would require that we abandon the principle of confining the Federal government’s jurisdiction to the international and interstate boundaries prescribed by the Constitution.

    • I’ll simple it up for you. What’s going on in Chiraq is an insurgency against the government of the United States. The President has every right to send in the Marines to put down this insurgency and restore the rule of law.

      • “What’s going on in Chiraq is an insurgency against the government of the United States.”

        I do not see it that way. What is going on in Chiraq is widespread malaise and “street justice” among criminal gangs.

        If the criminal gangs in Chiraq were attacking local, state, or federal government employees without justification, that would be an insurgency.

        • In my opinion, the local government is complicit in the aforementioned insurgency. By refusing to apply the full rigor of the law to stop the problem, they are effectively accomplices to the street level thugs.

    • Good points all. Regardless of constitutional considerations, from a practical standpoint, the Feds will have a very difficult time solving problems created by local policy without changes in the those policies.

  11. Declare a state of emergency. Abolish all hurdles for the law abiding to obtain weapons. Pull one percent of the budget from every city department. Immediately use the funds to greatly subsidize the purchase of weapons and training for law abiding citizens – with an emphasis for those neighborhoods in greatest peril.

    • Arming decent people would be effective if the victims of all these murders were decent people who just lacked the means to defend themselves from random violent attacks.

      Chicago’s problem isn’t that. The vast majority of those killed in the city are killed by gang members, and are either rival gang members (who are already armed, and that isn’t stopping the killing), or innocent bystanders who get shot accidentally (being armed isn’t going to save you when a random bullet flies in your window).

      • It is those “innocent bystanders” who need to be armed and trained. They have to LIVE in those neighborhoods, they may as well shoot some bad guys since the cops aren’t even arresting shooters. I think that’s such a good idea, if they started it I would contribute some $$.

        • Larry, I don’t know where in Texas you are, but there’s a Houston-based charity that aims to do exactly that. The Armed Citizen Project uses donations to train and arm good people in bad neighborhoods. I think they were mostly giving them single-shot shotguns, on the theory that one 12-gauge round is enough to protect your home from a crackhead, but an old Fudd gun has little value as a target of theft. Anyway, their website seems to be down right now, but last I checked, they had already distributed quite a few guns to people in need. Not sure if they’re still operating or not.

  12. Obama suggesting to send the feds into Chicago would be a gesture of empathy and goodwill and an example of how we all so very much need the fed.

    Trump sending them in is an authoritarian power grab meant to make a mockery of Obamas home town and best buddy.

    Just carpet bomb Chicago. Some estimates have put the number of active gang members in that one city up as high as 800,000. That’s a damn army. Thank god they’re so freaking stupid and drunk on lean or they’d figure out they could take the city over in a weekend.

    • They have more control of what happens in their neighborhoods on a daily basis than ISIS does in their own territory. How is this NOT an insurgency?

  13. Lax law 3rd world hellhole states need to be concerned about their own weapons showing up in Chicago.

    Chicago was safe before the gun laws were relaxed.

    When said laws were tweeked down did the crime and murder rates go up. CC increased the murder rates even more.

    All fuhrer trump (aka Mr. Rapey Racist McRapey) will do is make Chicago basically unlivable by increasing gun ownership oppressing the law abiding populace even more, laxing police presence endangering innocent people and increasing the tax rates which will screw even more innocents over.

    • Make Chicago basically unlivable? Raise taxes? That’s already been done by decades of one-party rule in local government.

      Guess which party.

  14. “Some note that Chicago’s firearms laws have been relaxed in recent years, specifically extending licensed concealed carry to the windy city…”

    In practice that is a lie. Concealed carry was extended to the rednecks who live south of Joliet and drive their monster trucks everywhere. In the city limits of Chicago, nobody can carry on a CTA bus or train, and state Rep. Brandon Phelps “NRA backed” carry bill has criminal penalties of SIX MONTHS or ONE YEAR in jail for every violation, so you have the added benefit of getting arrested, or shot like Philando Castile in Minnesota any time you deal with a cop.

    Trump is obsessed with Stop-and-Frisk, so look for him to promote more “saturation patrols” to pat down “street hoodlums.” Luckily for the police unions, Stop-and-Frisk is already built into Illinois’ carry bill, it’s called Duty to Inform. NRA state lobbyist Todd Vandermyde put it in Phelps 2013 carry bill because the anti-gun IL Chiefs of Police wanted it.

    Watch the NRA traitor in Illinois, he already sold out gun owners to be set up and killed by police. You have no idea how low this rat will sink next if he thinks he can get away with it.

    • READ the law, you twit. First violation is $150 fine misdemeanor. And your are right, we need to remove the public transportation restriction. Phelps did NOT want it in there, but if it was not we would have never gotten the super majority needed for a state preemption and ended up with the local New York CCL model and you still would not have been able to carry on public transportation. A dumb asses like you would print and then when a cop asks would say, but officer, I don’t have a gun. I have been made by CCPD twice without issues.

      • Binder @ 12:08- “READ the law, you twit. First violation is $150 fine misdemeanor.”

        Yes, you should learn to read. What is the highest level of education you have completed in your career, just G.E.D. or some community college also? Or should I say what is the lowest level of education you have?

        Every violation of Illinois carry act is a Class B Misdemeanor, which is six months in jail or $1,500 fine. The $150 fee is a tack on fine on top of your jail time and court fines that goes to the Illinois State Police to administer the license system. Brandon Phelps was looking out for you and creating a little side business for the police bureaucracy.

        “And your are right, we need to remove the public transportation restriction.”

        Who’s we? Crude shitbirds like you who are still to stupid to figure out that Brandon Phelps and Todd Vandermyde are your worst enemies?

        “Phelps did NOT want it in there…”

        You’re right, Brandon Phelps lives in Harrisburg, IL in “Little Egypt” and has never stepped on a CTA bus in his life, but he cares about the little people in Chicago taking the bus to work while he eats ribs with the Sheriff and his good old boys at the VFW hog roast. Phelps cares about you and he is your friend. That’s why he put Duty to Inform in his bill too, it’s for your own good and best for the police.

        “..but if it was not we would have never gotten the super majority needed for a state preemption..”

        Who is feeding you this garbage, press releases from Richard Pearson at ISRA? Pearson is a clown who couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag. He didn’t lift a finger to promote concealed carry for the last twenty years, and now he thinks it was his idea all along. Here’s what happened: they lied to you.

        “A dumb asses like you would print and then when a cop asks would say, but officer, I don’t have a gun. I have been made by CCPD twice without issues.”

        Crude, ignorant of the facts, angry, and with the good old boy mentality that “I’m one of the good guys.” You definitely possess all the negative traits and low intellect necessary to be one of the Illinois gun owners that sold out Otis McDonald and your own mother. Thanks for illustrating why NRA, Inc. is still in business. Chris Cox & Chuck Cunningham at NRA/ILA couldn’t pay Todd Vandermyde without cretins like you.

        • So, in other words. Demo man and demo man alone is smart enough to understand the problem. He needs no support and wants no support. He’ll single handedly save us from ourselves. Anybody that doesn’t agree is a hick, rascist red neck.

          So demo man is Obama?

  15. It isn’t hard to see how Chicago got where it is. The Feds started targeting and locking up high-level gang leaders. Sounds great on paper, but those were the old heads who knew how to keep the violence in check. Guys who knew that bodies on the street meant more police in their neighborhoods, so they’d solve territorial disputes and personal beefs between the small-time guys in other ways. It was organized crime. Well, you lock those guys up, and all the second- and third-stringers start rushing in to fill the void, and they don’t have the skills to manage their underlings the same way. So every little insult or transgression, every disrespectful glance gets solved with a bullet, because these guys aren’t smart or respected enough to employ other solutions.

    While we’re at it, let’s tear down the housing projects and disperse all the gangs living in them into the wind. Which caused them to resettle in other neighborhoods that were already “owned” by rival gangs, exacerbating the territorial disputes.

    This is just the logical, foreseeable result of what happens when an incompetent government tries to solve a problem that was created by an incompetent government. I don’t know what the solution is at this point, but I’m pretty sure the Feds don’t have an answer, either, since they’re the ones who created the problem by trying to solve the problem Chicago created (which is all a result of the “war on drugs” created by the Feds). It’s a seven-layer burrito, and all the layers are government-generated shit.

    All that aside, I just want to say that I don’t like Trump at all, but boy, I do respect the way he can troll progressives. He knows exactly what to say (in 140 characters or less) to get under their skin like a botfly maggot. If nothing else, his presidency will be worthwhile just to watch him do that.

    • x2 Your first paragraph is the gang problem in a nutshell (don’t remember where I originally read it.)

    • Very well said, Stinkeye, especially this:

      “This is just the logical, foreseeable result of what happens when an incompetent government tries to solve a problem that was created by an incompetent government.”

    • agenda to federalize local police and further gun control. THAT is Federal help. I talked to a Capt in the Savannah metro police dept that said they knew the biggest problem faced by local law enforcement didn’t come from the street but from the Feral Govt. A local deputy w/the Sherrifs dept agreed wholeheartedly. When are we going to look at the object of these operations? When are we going to reject the ridiculous notion that Donald Trump spends his days sending out tweets to local and world leaders. Its PERPOSTEROUS. Do we conduct diplomacy and domestic policy over twitter? Who believes this bovine excrement? What a joke.

  16. in a globalist (Marxist) vision of the world, everybody (the slaves) would be equal. So, how about o’bama’s house being opened up to HOMELESS?

  17. Meh.

    The root problem is that the people of Chicago don’t give a shit. This lack of shit-giving is reflected by the politicians they elect and the policies those politicians enact. The presence of such apathy is further reinforced by the fact that neither the politicians nor the policies change over time because the public doesn’t really care, or certainly doesn’t care enough to vote differently when they have the opportunity to do so.

    It’s quite clear that your average Chicagoan is happy as a clam about how things are going. Who am I to say different?

    • Most Chicagoans do care but have no confidence in politicians of either political party. Also, Chicago is rightly known for rigging elections (1960, Daley), so most folks don’t see their vote as making a difference.

      Near Clark Street, around 1968, my mom chased out two intruders with a Browning .32 cal. semi-automatic.. all it took was the mere display of a tiny mousegun to save the day. We had a bolt-action rifle in the apartment too, a Lee Enfield. I now live in gun-friendly Wisconsin, but the meth heads from Chicago are ruining my town which is over 200 miles away: my dining room window was smashed during a failed home invasion attempt last summer. I suspect they saw me with my new Ruger AR-556, but they disappeared so fast I can’t be sure. If it weren’t for home owners with guns, my town would be Little Chicago (over 700 meth cases in my county of 120,000 people just last year!).

      • If by “meth cases” you mean arrests due to use or dealing or making meth, that’s nothing — we have half that in a country with a tenth the population.

  19. When Cabrini Green became impossible to manage, Chicago bulldozed it. Now that Chicago has become impossible to manage, we can only hope that history will repeat itself.

  20. With the #BLMKidnapping bullshit it’s time to close off the city and pump in VX by the truckload.

  21. Here’s how the Feds can help Chicago:

    Start up a RICO and influence-peddling investigation into the political leadership of the city, county and state. Tear through “the Chicago machine” with no mercy, no quarter. Imprison the corrupt leaders, grifters, rent-seeking self-dealers for maximum terms. Go after their families. Claw back ill-gotten gains.

    Once the political situation is cleared up, then the community can start to restore some balance.

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