Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals
Chicago Tribune ^

Posted on 05/31/2014 5:09:14 AM PDT by rellimpank

Chicago has many law-abiding gun owners who handle their weapons safely and responsibly. The ordinance proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to regulate gun sales in the city is not about them. It's about Chicago's other gun owners: violent thugs who kill innocents as well as each other while terrorizing countless citizens with the ever-present threat of death by bullet.

Those are the people who have given this city a murder rate far higher than that of other big cities, including New York and Los Angeles. The measures Emanuel requests won't incapacitate all or most of them. But they would make a significant difference in how easy it is for criminals to get guns.

Emanuel would prefer to allow no gun shops. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chicago's ban on handgun ownership, the city passed a law outlawing gun stores. But in January that ban also fell, at the hands of a federal judge who ruled that it violated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

He gave Chicago six months to enact a new ordinance allowing gun stores. But he stressed that "nothing in this opinion prevents the city from considering other regulations ... on sales and transfers of firearms to minimize the access of criminals to firearms."

That's what the mayor's proposal aims to do. The city undertook a study, with the help of the respected University of Chicago Crime Lab, which found that Chicago police recover seven times more guns, per capita, than the New York police and more than twice as many as the Los Angeles police. Nearly 60 percent of the guns were brought in other states. Almost 20 percent came from four gun shops near Chicago — three in the suburbs and one in Gary.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: banglist; chicago; rkba
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-31 last
To: cripplecreek

-or- make sure ANYONE who wants and legally qualifies for a firearm can get one with ease...

Then, the “playing field” is a little more even.

Criminals will ALWAYS have firearms... let me say it again... ALWAYS!

Better to arm everyone else...


21 posted on 05/31/2014 6:36:20 AM PDT by bfh333 ("We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: bfh333

“make sure ANYONE who wants and legally qualifies for a firearm can get one with ease...

Then, the “playing field” is a little more even.

Criminals will ALWAYS have firearms... let me say it again... ALWAYS!

Better to arm everyone else...”

As Americans do like equality, and we are a playful people, who enjoy our guns. To further our enjoyment, consider the benefits of that old American method of ‘direct reduction’ of the population of criminals - the “BOUNTY”.

It works, costs little when compared to prisons, and think of the happy smile on the face of an elderly Black person living in Urban Feral habitat when the Bounty Check arrives in the mail!

Then, think of the multitudinous happy smiles on the faces of the rest of the tax paying population when they read the daily list of Bounty Awardees, and they remember of all the penal system costs they won’t be paying.


22 posted on 05/31/2014 7:28:55 AM PDT by GladesGuru (Islam Delenda Est - because of what Islam is and because of what Muslims do.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

***Nearly 60 percent of the guns were brought in other states. Almost 20 percent came from four gun shops near Chicago***

Bunk. You can’t buy handguns across state lines, Plus, if in Illinois, you must have a FOID.


23 posted on 05/31/2014 7:30:40 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need more than seven rounds, Much more.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
You can’t buy handguns across state lines

Not legally, perhaps. For those with intention to use guns to commit crimes, this legality is not likely to be a major concern.

I would assume what the article is trying to say is that this 60% of the guns used in Chicago crimes were originally bought legally in other states. They were then either stolen from the legal purchasers and illegally trafficked into IL, or were illegally sold across state lines by the original legal purchasers.

In either case, it's difficult to see how a Chicago city ordinance could have any impact at all on the situation.

24 posted on 05/31/2014 7:34:44 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: umgud
I have a better idea and congress could enact it tomorrow. It’s is already a federal felony for a felon to be in possesion of a firearm. Congress could demand a mandatory minimum five year prison sentence (on top of any other crime) for anybody previously convicted of a violent crime such as forcable rape, murder, mollestation, armed robbey, etc.

Some states have such laws but prosecutors often drop these charges for an easy guilty plea for another crime that does not have a minimum and the thugs are out in a matter of months. The system is so screwed up they will take the easy conviction to keep their stats up.

25 posted on 05/31/2014 7:39:46 AM PDT by gunnut
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: facedown

The Trib is a mouthpiece for City Hall with no news of interest to anyone living outside of Chicago except for knowing what additional tyranny the mayor wants to impose on the rest of Illinois.

The Trib is bird cage liner & nothing more.


26 posted on 05/31/2014 7:40:07 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("In the modern world, Muslims are living fossils.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek
The fact is that criminals will get a gun if they want one and increased penalties don’t do a thing to deter them.

This is not really a defensible conservative position.

In any other aspect of life we recognize that increased regulation creating barriers to entry, even inefficient barriers, reduces that activity.

But supposedly when the issue is access to guns, any conceivable regulations are supposed to have ZERO impact on their availability and use in crime.

I will cheerfully agree that most proposed gun control regulations would be highly ineffective and severely intrusive on the civil rights of law-abiding citizens. For which reason, among others, they should not be implemented.

But that's very different from claiming that laws that make getting a gun more difficult will have no effect at all on the number of crimes committed with guns.

27 posted on 05/31/2014 7:41:29 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

Reasonable gun laws are for reasonably stupid people.


28 posted on 05/31/2014 7:47:05 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: rellimpank
Here's one simple solution to Chicago's burgeoning murder by gun problem: STOP the ATF from doing the “Fast and Furious” operation that uses guns purchased in Indiana (with ATF approval) and being funneled to Chicago street gangs! That alone would take a major bite out of crime.

[Note: Rahm Emanuel knows all about this because it was being done by ATF on his watch while he was Barry's Chief of Staff in the White House. If anything, the volume of guns supplied to Chicago gangs through ATF straw man purchases in Indiana have multiplied since Rahm became Mayor of Chicago.]

29 posted on 05/31/2014 9:27:49 AM PDT by MasterGunner01
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MasterGunner01; cripplecreek

William Kelly (a conservative who says that law-abiding Americans should own guns to defend themselves) is running for mayor of Chicago. Please donate to his campaign by using this site: www.williamjkellyforchicago.com.


30 posted on 06/01/2014 2:16:32 PM PDT by PhilCollins
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: All


Less Than $2.9k To Go!!
Even George Would Be Shocked
To Find Some FReepers
Haven't Donated To FR This Quarter!
Every Dollar Helps!!

Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!


31 posted on 06/01/2014 2:17:29 PM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-31 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson