Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel may not like people calling his city “Chiraq,” but the Windy City experience another bloody weekend of shootings left four people dead and 29 wounded (via Fox23Chicago):
Four people were killed and at least 29 others have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday evening, according to police.About 6 a.m. Sunday, a person was shot to death in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side, police said.
[…]
Saturday night, a man was killed and a woman was injured in a Brighton Park neighborhood shooting on the Southwest Side, police said.
Officers responding to a call of a person shot about 9:30 p.m. in the 4000 block of South Albany found the 35-year-old man lying in the street, police said.
[…]
At least 22 other people have been shot across the city since 8 p.m. Friday.
Yet, to be fair, it’s not just Chicago that’s experiencing rough periods of violent crime. Washington D.C. experienced its 101st homicide this weekend, and federal agents once again have descended upon Baltimore to help the city’s homicide unit stem the spike in violence.
At the same time, it’s also a friendly reminder that stringent anti-gun laws do next to nothing to combat crime. At an August 13 press conference, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier pretty much admitted that gun control laws don’t work (via Red Alert Politics):
There’s been a number of changes in gun laws in states all across the United States in the past several years, a number of pushes to purchase these high capacity magazines, for fear that they may not be legally available sometime in the future, and now is it possible that now maybe some of those are making their way to the major cities? We don’t know, but for some reason they are showing up in all major cities,” Lanier said during the press conference.Lanier credited D.C.’s rising body count to repeat offenders who had been released from prison and had the ability to purchase high-capacity weapons.
“Multiple of our offenders involved in the homicides have previous homicides and are recently back in the community,” Lanier continued. “So far this year ten people involved in homicide have had prior homicide charges. Ten.”
So despite federal gun control laws that prevent felons from owning or possessing a firearm, more than 10 percent of the city’s murders were committed by felons.
“What we’re seeing is violent offenders that are committing shootings and homicides that have multiple violent offenses. The number of guns recovered this year and last year is both up,” she said.
Does she know she is contradicting herself?
D.C. already bans magazines that hold more than ten rounds of ammunition; a point that was highlighted when David Gregory, former host of NBC’s Meet The Press, presented a 30-round magazine during a discussion about gun laws in the wake of the Newtown shooting with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. The D.C. Police wanted to charge him, but the D.C. Attorney General declined to move forward regarding brining charges against Mr. Gregory.