Posted on 11/24/2009 4:02:49 AM PST by marktwain
Last week, the body of Chicago school board president Michael Scott was found in the Chicago River with a single bullet wound in his head. The big story was that this powerful, well-connected public official had, according to the county medical examiner, committed suicide. The less-noticed story was that he did it with an illegal weapon.
After all, handgun ownership is not allowed in the city of Chicago, which has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and Scott killed himself with a .380-caliber sidearm.
Unlike most Chicagoans, Scott could have been a legal handgun owner. Because he had it before the ban was enacted, he was allowed to register and keep it. But the police department says he never did. By having it in the city, Scott was guilty of an offense that could have gotten him jail time.
Amazingly enough, he was not the first local public official to take the view that firearms restrictions are something for other, ordinary people to observe. Chicago politicians are zealously committed to gun control in law but fairly relaxed about it in practice.
In 1994, State Sen. Rickey Hendon had an unregistered handgun stolen from his home in a burglary, and he didn't feign contrition about his disregard of the ordinance.
"I have a right to protect myself," he declared, noting that he had been burglarized before—and forgetting that the state legislature of which he is a member allows Illinois cities to deprive their citizens of that right. Asked if he would replace the lost piece, Hendon said, "No comment." The police were kind enough not to charge him.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
I've been wondering when this was going to come up. I'm also waiting for Rich Daley, the stupidest politician in America (there's a title you don't come by easily given the competition) to blame guns for Mr. Scott's suicide, or condemn him for illegally owning a gun. Hasn't happened yet.
You'd donate x dollars to the Sheriff's Campaign coffers then - whala - you got a shiny new Badge. You were supposed to work as a Court Bailiff once a month but few if any did. Most of these 'Deputies' were 'connected Businessmen', their adult kids, or worse.
This practice supposedly ended when the lid was blown off after one Cook County Sheriff was convicted of corruption and Mob ties. Every one of these 'Deputies' was named in a newspaper article and few too many were actual Mob Members - oops.
And the Sheriff's political party was irrelevant, this went on under both D's and R's. It was a Republican Sheriff who was busted.
Vince Foster did it. /s
Good point. He jumps on every national guncrime story like a linebacker, but when a reporter asks about Scott, he cries like a baby.
Which is why we have one of the lowest crime rates in the country. LOL!
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