Concealed carry and Chicago wildings
Would a concealed carry law in Illinois help prevent rampages such as this recent one in Chicago?
Here’s a proposal (2/25/2012). Note this quote:
Chicago aldermen, Chicago police officers, and even the head of Cook County government all told state lawmakers Friday morning that while the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that concealed carry should be legalized, Illinois lawmakers can craft a very tough law.
“Elementary, secondary and higher education buildings should be a gun-free zone,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told lawmakers. “Government owned and operated buildings should be gun-free zones. ”¦ One should not be able to possess a weapon in a hospital or a nursing home. Houses of worship should be gun-free zones.”
Preckwinkle also wants local governments, notably Cook County and the city of Chicago, to be able to opt out of any statewide concealed-carry law.
“There are 102 counties in the state of Illinois,” Preckwinkle said. “Given the special circumstances in Cook County, it might be something we would want to consider.”
That announcement seems to be saying to potential mass murderers (or those bent not on murder but merely on destructive “wilding” and “mischief“—although the adjective “mischievous” seems to have been scrubbed from the article in which it originally appeared) exactly where they’ll be able to go for maximum effect. Why should they take the risk of being stopped by a bullet?
And as far as mass murderers are concerned, schools and churches and hospitals contain the most vulnerable victims whose deaths would be guaranteed to summon the maximum pathos and the maximum publicity. Also, if there’s one thing we should have learned from Newtowne, it’s that a determined killer can probably get through any barricade or lock we have been able to devise.
And I’d love to know what those Chicago “special circumstances” are to which Preckwinkle refers. My guess is that she’s referring to the high crime rate, although I can’t see that a law against carrying a concealed weapon would stop most criminals. After all, they’re by definition lawbreakers. It seems logical that those who would be most easily deterred from carrying a weapon illegally would be the law-abiding.
And yes, I’m well aware of the position of John Lott that concealed carry reduces crime. I went through a period several years ago of extensive reading on that subject, and could come to no definitive conclusion. I refer you to this webpage if you want to immerse yourself in the pros and cons.
But no matter what, the city of Chicago better get its act together. These “kids” know they can destroy property and attack people without consequences to themselves that they would regard as serious.
And what did the assaulted cop do to defend himself? I’d love to know. Did he use mace? If not, how did he deflect the attack despite being outnumbered?
Against a crowd, police are only superior by dint of their superior firepower and/or other weaponry, because the crowd usually has superior numbers. Had the police officers used guns, or other violent means of control, they would no doubt have become the poster children for targeting “innocent” (and presumably black—all the videos seem to indicate that, although the MSM articles are for the most part careful not to mention it) teenagers.
This is hardly the first time this has happened in Chicago. The lack of discipline—parental and societal and official—has emboldened these young people, and social media has allowed them to coordinate as never before. Social media can be used to organize fun things like dancing flash mobs. It can also be used to foment a coup (as in Egypt), or to coordinate acts of criminal, pointless, meaningless, nihilistic destruction, as in Chicago. Vandalism used to be the province of individuals or small groups of teenagers or adults. Now large ones be assembled rather easily, and in this case many women (girls? what should we call them these days?) got into the act.
If this doesn’t get under control, the whole thing is a prescription for a riot. Law-abiding people—white, black, or any color of the rainbow—are getting very very tired of being intimidated by thugs, and of having their order-keeping forces neutered. A civil society depends on a civil contract that peace will be kept, or it becomes the Wild West and each person must keep his/her own peace. And remember what they carried in the Wild West.
This will all end in guns. How many and how soon are the only questions.
I see that Preckwinkle made her comments last February, which was before her son was charged with “battering a homeless man” later in the year.
She also earlier in 2012 said that Reagan deserves “a special place in hell” for his drug policy and the “war on drugs”.
Anyway, she seems to take a non-Giuliani approach to fighting crime:
“Preckwinkle says one of the reasons the jail population has swelled recently is that Chicago police have responded to the violence with a huge increase in arrests, including for low-level, nonviolent crimes. Prosecutors are pursuing these cases even though most end up being thrown out.
She argues there’s another way to fight crime. ‘We ought to invest a lot more in our public schools. You know, feed the kids breakfast, lunch, and dinner; have after-school activities; keep the schools open until nine o’clock in the evenings and on weekends; invest in things like the Boys and Girls Club and the Park District–I mean, everything, basically, to dramatically ramp up the investments in our children’.”
Here’s the link for Preckwinkle’s remark about Reagan.
There is no political organism as simultaneously corrupt and stupid as the triumvirate of Chicago, Cook County, and Springfield, IL. Many may well be aware of the corruption (and indictments) of our governors dating back to the ’50s but few are aware of the individual politicians in local, county, and state offices who make the likes of Pelosi, Harry Reid, Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, and Joe Biden seem shining beacons of intellectual enlightenment, high principle, and moral uprightness. Chicago is trending the way of Detroit, as are many other cities. We may yet return to a rural/agrarian society, not by a hankering but by a necessity (survival).
Would CC help in Chicago? Only if you want to get Zimmerman’d. (Zimmermaned?) Anyway – while the rank and file police are on the innocent victim’s side, the PTB and the media aren’t.
I’m going to be taking a Utah CC class later this month, since it’s likely that’s what will be approved in IL. It’s a gamble, but I think it will be approved.
Would I carry if I went downtown? I doubt it. (I’m not even sure I want to carry at all, but I want the option.)
There are two posts on http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/. The one from the weekend which ran about 300 comments was the one I read. I see a new one up there, but I won’t get to it until tonight. Not sure how to link to the specific posts on that blog.
Beware – some of the comments are on the salty side.
I’m in favor of arming all the school kids. Nothing says “do not disturb” like a classroom full of 3rd graders with .40 S&W Glocks.
I was a grad student at the University of Chicago in the first half of the 1970s when the South Side was considerably more dangerous than it is today. One sunny Sunday a friend of mine decided to take a bike ride along Lake Michigan from Hyde Park to the Loop. He never made it because he was held up and had the bike stolen from him. It turned out that the thief who stopped him was wearing a trench coat which he opened to reveal a rifle. Sort of gives a new meaning to concealed carry.
BEGIN EXCERPT
“Elementary, secondary and higher education buildings should be a gun-free zone,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told lawmakers. “Government owned and operated buildings should be gun-free zones. … One should not be able to possess a weapon in a hospital or a nursing home. Houses of worship should be gun-free zones.”
Preckwinkle also wants local governments, notably Cook County and the city of Chicago, to be able to opt out of any statewide concealed-carry law.
“There are 102 counties in the state of Illinois,” Preckwinkle said. “Given the special circumstances in Cook County, it might be something we would want to consider.”
END EXCERPT
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AN(OTHER) APRIL FOOL’S DAY JOKE?
I was in Chicago just once, in 1976. The only memory I have of it is the barbed wire around a fountain on a walkway along the lakefront.
Tough town. Or toddlin’ town?
The only thing the individual can do is stay away and move away. That’s how cities die.
It looks like John Derbyshire was on to something. Avoidance is a rational strategy.
In other words, formal notification to criminals and psychopaths that the above places are free-fire zones.
So children should be raised 100% by the government. What a piece of work. In a sane country she would be tarred and feathered, at the very least.
Naturally, I favor an armed populous. Any adult who can demonstrate basic fire arm safety, qualify on the range at 20 feat, yes feat not yards, and who can show they understand when it is legal and not legal to use deadly force should be allowed to carry concealed anywhere in the county with the possible exceptions of police stations, prisons, and court houses. If just 20% of responsible adults were carrying it would soon prove to be a game changer
Preckwinkle seems to believe there is nothing out there save for black children of single mamas who live in (ahem) public housing, all equipped with Obamaphones and PCs. So lets give ’em three squares and some hoops to shoot after dark, lots of condoms, places to use them, and the wilding will just end.
Preckwinkle omits the high walls topped with razor wire and DHS ninjas posted every 50 feet. That’s a curious oversight 😉
Everyone would be a bit safer if I were not prevented from carrying a firearm WHEREVER I am allowed to go: Schools, Churches, Government Building of every kind.