I'm sure many of my readers have been following the story of the multiple shootings in Chicago last weekend. Three dozen of them left nine people dead and many others injured.
Criminal conduct, right? Yep. But do the police in Chicago come out and say that?
Like hell they do.
Police blame the warmer temperatures for the spike in violence.
"We know that we're approaching warmer weather, the summer season. We know that this is going to be a very busy season for the Chicago Police Department. There's no doubt about that," Bond said.
Chicago Police have also recently started using helicopter patrols to try to curb gang violence. Choppers will be flying over areas prone to gang activity, especially on weekends when more shootings seem to occur.
Well, in the third paragraph of the quote, they finally said something useful. Turns out that "gang violence" is a factor. It's still not identified as criminal, mind you - and the warm weather might even be responsible for the gangs. You never know.
This weekend, according to another news report, "police planned to increase patrols and put SWAT officers and specialized units on the streets" to prevent more such incidents.
In the same report, Mayor Daley issued yet another fatuous, ridiculous, idiotic, ideologically blinkered and utterly ineffectual statement.
A fired-up Daley blasted the gun industry and called on parents and adults to do their part by intervening to help troubled youth and by working to keep others on the right path.
"I don't want people to wait for Mayor Daley to call a meeting. I want you to call a meeting in your home with your children and loved ones. I want you to go next door and talk to those children next door. I want the parents of the block to say 'This block will be free of violence,'" he said.
It is key for children to be occupied in after-school or other programs so they stay out of trouble, especially when they're not in a classroom, Daley said.
Mayor, I have news for thee. It's not the gun-makers who are pulling the triggers on your streets - it's criminal thugs! And thanks to your anti-gun stance that has seen the defensive use of handguns (and even their possession) made extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, those thugs can terrorize innocent citizens without much fear of retaliation. And your variety of "fired-up" indignation is a major part of the reason why others are getting rather more literally "fired up" on your streets.
If your gang-bangers didn't have guns, they'd use machetes, or baseball bats (as did another famous Chicago resident, a certain Mr. A. Capone, if I recall correctly), or Molotov cocktails, or whatever else comes to hand. They do so daily in prison. I know. I've worked in a high-security prison. I had the dubious privilege of meeting many Chicago gangster types inside its walls. Long may they stay there.
Guns aren't the problem, Mayor Daley. As always in the history of the human race, bad people are the problem. If you don't get that, you don't get anything. Period.
Other "activists" in Chicago seem to have no greater sense.
Tio Hardiman, executive director of CeaseFire, an anti-violence group, said young people need help finding alternatives to the streets.
"We need to go right to the corners and find out what some of these young people want to do, identify some employers that are willing to hire maybe 30 from this neighborhood, 30 from another neighborhood and try to get them hired somewhere so then we can get them off the corners."
Uh-huh, Mr. Hardiman. You really expect me, or anyone else, to hire people off the street - from areas where their inhabitants' main leisure-time activity seems to involve murder and mayhem?
Dream on, buddy.
Let's take a look at where the problem lies. This map shows the location of the recent shootings on a map of the greater Chicago area. The blue markers represent shootings: the red ones, fatal shootings. (Click the map for a larger view.)
Greater Chicago doesn't have a problem. Certain very specific suburbs or areas have the problem. If you want to deal with it, Mayor Daley, then deal with those areas. Deal with the rampant gang activity, the drug-dealing, the prostitution, the endemic "welfare culture" of a great many who live there. Force the people of those areas to stand on their own two feet, without keeping them dependent on handouts from the State that have turned many of them into welfare junkies. Tell them that if they persist in screwing up their own areas, you won't spend another nickel on fixing the problems they themselves have caused. Do all that . . . and you might get somewhere.
I don't think you'll do anything of the sort, unfortunately. That same "welfare culture" ensures a nice, solid block of votes for people like you who "talk the talk", but have neither the intention nor the ability to "walk the walk".
Areas and cities with more level-headed inhabitants don't have this problem, Mayor Daley. I recall when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The city where I live had an influx of "refugees" from there, including many gang-bangers and thugs. They promptly tried to do to us what they'd become used to doing in New Orleans . . . and got the shock of their lives. You see, in our town many of us (most?) are armed; we don't have a problem looking out for ourselves and each other; and we're absolutely determined that our streets will not become the sewers and shooting galleries (of more than one variety) that you've permitted yours to become, Mayor Daley.
One of my fonder post-Katrina memories was watching two local cops handcuff three New Orleans gang-bangers prior to putting them in durance vile.
One of them, still blubbering from the shock of having a female shop assistant shove the muzzle of a twelve-gauge shotgun under his nose and invite him to "Go for it, dumbass!", said tearfully to one cop, "But dis NEVAH happen in New Oh-Leen!"
The cop looked at him, rather irritably (euphemism!), and retorted, "Yeah . . . but this ain't New Orleans!"
(Preach it, brother!)
You make me sick, Mayor Daley, as do all those of your ilk. Shame on you - and on all those dumb enough to elect politicians like you.
Peter
3 comments:
Perhaps by Labor Day they will have cleaned up rather like a self-cleaning oven. If only the thugs could target only each other...
Linked and referenced.
The part about the weather is true in a way--a very limited way. The truth is that Chicago has an advantage in its weather, because unlike, say, Los Angeles or Miami, they have months of the year when no thug wants to be on a street corner for long. That keeps the violence tamped down during those months, but it's just building pressure. It never goes away.
Chicago cops do predict a "Long Hot Summer" as they say, but that doesn't mean that the rank and file actually think warm weather causes crime, like their Big Dumb Mayor. They might as well blame crime on sunset since it happens more at night.
Word from Chicago cops at Second City Cop is that previous police superintendents found ways to reclassify homicides in the statistics, and that's what really made Chicago's murder rate drop in the last few years. They say, in fact, that there were two detectives assigned to that duty at headquarters.
The new guy, Weis, is having all that work undone, so the murder stats this year will be even more shocking, but even that doesn't tell the whole tale. The guys who write SCC are convinced that this year will be as violent as the really bad years in the early 1990's, but it won't show up in the murder columns because medical care is so advanced. They say that if you look at the stats, murder is down and aggravated assault is up. In other words, people are getting charged with less than murder not because they didn't try to kill someone, but because the paramedics and the hospitals prevented their victims from dying.
It's all about the voting block. People are kept like pets on public dole so long as they vote the victim party line.
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