I'm still blinking in astonishment at this news report from Chicago. Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.
Since Friday at 5 p.m., 60 people have been shot, nine fatally, in shootings in Chicago.
34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police. During one two-and-a-half hour-hour period, 25 people were shot in five multi-injury shootings.
"We know that some of these incidents were targeted and are related to gang conflicts in those areas," said Chicago Police Chief of Patrol Fred Waller at a press conference Sunday afternoon.
. . .
CPD said the majority of the shootings took place in the six, tenth and 11th districts and that gunmen shot into large crowds, not caring if they hit people other than those they were targeting.
. . .
"I think some of our more challenging, communities, it's just imperative that police and the community work together to reduce this gun violence," Superintendent Johnson said. "We just have too many guns on the streets of Chicago."
There's more at the link.
25 people shot in 2½ hours??? How can they speak so casually about mass casualties like that? One might expect those figures from a terrorist attack on a nightclub, or a plane crash - yet the report is quite matter-of-fact about it. Yes, I agree the attacks were probably gang-related, but why are the gangs tolerated when they inflict such carnage on the city? Why aren't they rooted out and destroyed, at no matter what cost? Right now, it looks very much as if the rule of law is dead in at least some parts of Chicago, replaced by the rule of anarchy!
As for "too many guns on the streets of Chicago", that has very little to do with it. In the area of Northern Texas where I live, I guarantee you we have a damn sight more guns on the streets than Chicago would ever dream of! I'm usually carrying one or two of them myself. It's so routine to be armed around here that no-one turns a hair . . . yet our crime rate is negligible, because our criminals know that if they try something stupid, they're very likely to be shot. Here, guns guarantee law and order, rather than the opposite. The fact that guns don't do that in Chicago isn't because firearms are somehow evil up there, while being good down here. It's because those carrying the guns are either good or evil. It's not a gun problem. It's a people problem . . . and Chicago looks to have a bunch of really evil, sick people within its city limits.
Don't send them to us. Yes, we can always use the target practice, but you'll send your damn fool liberal lawyers with them, and we don't have enough tar, feathers and rope for all of them. Yet.
Peter
Peter ... I direct you to the excellent website www.heyjackass.com where the author Chronicles the violence problems in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteChicago politicians are in bed with the gangs. Just like they always have been since the days of Prohibition.
ReplyDeleteJust quick note: While the death toll from Chicago is appalling, the per capita numbers from 2017 show that among large US cities it is bad, but only roughly a third as the worst case, Saint Louis.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to Chicago their status as the shooting capitol of the US is more about population than crime stats.
ReplyDeleteI’m not saying they don’t have significant issues, just that total numbers (vs the standard # per 100k) can be a bit decieving. Still not moving there.
Yeah, I'll agree with the others that excitement about Chicago crime numbers needs to be tempered by an understanding of the sheer size of the population involved.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, reports like this should make one wonder what New York City had done right. Their per capital rates are staggeringly low compared to the average.
Like most cities , these shootings are concentrated within a few areas. Those areas are catastrophic, but large part of the city are relatively nice to very nice. They temper the per capita stats. Memphis broke up its projects and spread their inhabitants throughout the suburbs with Section 8 grants and crime has metastasized across much of Shelby County. A cunning stunt being repeated elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Illinois.
ReplyDeleteBefore you can legally even touch a firearm you must apply for, pass a full background check, and have issued a Firearm Owner ID card, the infamous FOID card. That is a statewide requirement. And obviously something the Chicago gang bangers choose to ignore. I believe Illinois also has a mandatory waiting period for purchases. And I before it was overturned in the McDonald vs Chicago Supreme Court case the city had a complete handgun ban.
So the obvious solution must be even more gun control. By all means lets follow the same path pioneered by Great Britain and enact ever increasing restrictions until we have effectively disarmed all legal citizens. Only then can we expect the same peace and safety being experienced in Britain where their violent crime rate is only five times greater than the U.S. and London is reporting more murders than we're seeing in New York City.
Just in case my sarcasm escapes anyone, gun control simply does not work. It punishes honest citizens while being at most a minor impediment to the criminal and the terrorist.
Uncle Lar, you're quoting stats from a couple widely disproven memes. Britain's violent crime rate is only 5x higher because they count all robberies, simple assaults, non-forcible rape, etc. as "violent". The FBI does not. If you include those crimes on the US total the two countries are about the same. Except that the US murder rate is 4x Britain.
DeleteLondon's murder rate did go higher than NYC's for a couple of months. Not because theirs trended up but because NYC's has fallen so much.
http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checking-ben-swann-is-the-uk-really-5-times-more-violent-than-the-us/
Larry is right. The shootings mainly are occurring in about eight of the city's 21 police districts. Because of the Ferguson effect (known in Chicago as the ACLU effect), proactive policing is dead, and any copper who wants to stay employed, un-bankrupted, and out of jail adopts the FIDO policing principle (Fuck It, Drive On), and only answers radio calls. In addition, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office routinely charges felonies as misdemeanors (an armed robbery becomes a theft, for example), and the courts are granting bail and electronic monitoring to violent felons, sometimes even after they've been caught cutting off their ankle monitors.
ReplyDeleteThe districts where the shootings are have always been high crime areas, but thanks to the new political climate, they've gotten much, much worse.
Pray tell, what SORT of people are the problem? Perhaps the same people who commit violent crime wherever they go, be it Dallas, Chicago, or London? The problem is black people, it has been black people for the last half century. Until you are honest about the racial nature of the crime in america, you will never ever solve it.
ReplyDeletebmq215 said...
ReplyDeleteUncle Lar, you're quoting stats from a couple widely disproven memes.
And bmq is quoting from a 4 year old article based on 9 year old data that doesn't reflect what we've learned since then about: Systematic under-reporting of rape and violence by immigrants, collaboration and participation of law enforcement in criminal gangs, home invasion, and the unique definition of murder that the British use (no arrest, no murder.)
And the fact that Britain, our ancestral home of common law and free speech, can now, with impunity, jail an activist for reporting on a criminal trial.
Find the common thread:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.guns.com/2017/04/17/straw-purchaser-with-4-felony-gun-charges-will-not-get-jail-time/
https://freebeacon.com/culture/rapper-preformed-march-lives-previously-pled-guilty-gun-crime/
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2017/01/24/probation-straw-purchase-gun-used-cop-shooting/97004132/
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2018-05-04/man-described-lawyer-uber-driver-drugs-gets-4-years-probation.html
I know whose hands are covered in blood.
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ReplyDeleteI live in Chicago. I live within 20 miles of downtown, in an old Polish/Irish Neighborhood. No one is rich, but there are no Polish or Irish gang members. We all walk around day and night in peace. Most of my neighbors carry or own home firearms legally. There are two gun ranges within 20 minutes of the Village. Other than a few burglaries there has not been any violent crime since I moved here.
ReplyDeleteWhat the media doesn't report is with rare exception all these shootings are gang members shooting other gang members in the hood. It's probably 1/3 of the total police precincts. It's gotten worse because the ACLU stuck their nose into policing and now the police are afraid to pull over and arrest anyone (you're racist!) which means pro-active policing is no longer the norm and the criminals, none of whom follow the gun laws the rest of us do, know very well - Brigid (sorry, didn't realize on first post I was signed up with my dog blog name).
The average shooting victim has been arrested at least 10 times. The average shooter has been arrested at least 20 times.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a gun control problem. We have a criminal control problem. If they were behind bars or under the ground, they wouldn't be bothering decent folks.
When I was in Viet Nam the dead/wounded ratio was about 1/10. I see that in Chicago it's about 1/5. Either the guns have gotten much deadlier or individual marksmanship has greatly improved. I find the statistic interesting.
ReplyDeleteAlso there's the "who cares" factor. If Crip A shoots Blood B, who cares? Do black lives matter? Depends on whose it is I guess.
Billll:
ReplyDeleteThere are no Crips or Bloods in Chicago. They're People and Folks.
But your analogy stands.
In Chicago, and nationwide, only about 20% of all murder victims are "legit" victims. (In Chicago parlance, a "legit" person is one who's not a criminal, or connected to criminals.) Most legit victims are robbery victims or innocent people caught in gang shootings. (Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of decent people living in the ghetto and the barrio.) But the vast majority of murders are criminal-on-criminal.
ReplyDeleteFor Old 1811, I enjoyed the books by Robert Frezza and particulary, Fire in a Faraway Place. In it the soldiers used nicknames for the native populations from 3 primary backgrounds. At some point the high command ordered them to stop so the soldiers almost complied and called them "stills". Nothing had changed.
ReplyDeleteIn general the reason that nobody gets excited about these extravagant gangland shootings is because they pretty much happen every weekend. They got used to it and since most of them aren't involved, they no longer care.
It is I think we all agree one hell of a damning indictment of 'gun control.'
I always substitute "gang" for "gun" in any news reporting. It's much more accurate and puts the blame on the person, not the object.
ReplyDeletezuk