Many readers have already seen the video of Al Sharpton’s anti-gun Townhall that erupted into protest over poor policies that have condemned Chicago’s poorest-- and largely black communities—as vying to make the Windy City the murder capital of the world.
The rich, white Liberals who control Chicago, and the black politicians who enable them, seem ill informed about the vast safety desert that they have created in fifty years of progressive rule.
In the latest incident, a 15-year old girl was left naked and raped with severe head injuries on what Chicago politicians call a “safe passage” route in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. The so called “safe passage routes” are an ill-conceived attempt to provide children who live in gang-controlled and violent neighborhoods with a way to get to and from school without being victims of violent crime. Citizens and cops patrol routes that children take to and from school.
Presumably, this take the place of an armed citizenry.
“While many cities have programs to help children get to and from school safely,” wrote the New York Times last August, “experts said few appear to be as elaborate and comprehensive as Chicago’s — a fact that advocates held up as proof of the city’s intense commitment to education and critics described as an unhappy reflection of the city’s struggle with violence. Known as Safe Passage, Chicago’s program began after the beating death in 2009 of a 16-year-old student, Derrion Albert, after he left his South Side high school one afternoon.”
Elaborate and comprehensive?
Try stupid.
They should let citizens arm themselves. Try 12 honest men armed with semi-auotmatic weapons. Instead they put up barriers to defense, especially for the poorest citizens in Chicago.
“In 2010 the City Council hastily passed a new law that allows residents to keep guns in their homes after they undergo multiple background checks,” writes the Chicago Reader, an alternative paper, “take a training class, acquire a state firearm owner's identification (FOID) card, and apply for a firearm permit with the police.”
These are big barriers to gun ownership for most poor people caught in the worst neighborhoods.
The article wonders what the new gun laws have done to make the city safe. The murder rate is still unacceptable. Firearms interest remains high for both legal and illegal purchases, the Reader notes.
This is perhaps one of the best illustrations of the truism that when you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns.
“By the end of February, 7,750 people had successfully applied for city firearm permit,” says the Reader, “just 6 percent of the 130,000 Chicagoans who have FOID [firearm owner identification] cards. Though not everyone with a FOID card owns a gun—and some gun owners, including police and security guards, are exempt from permits—it's evident that thousands of firearm owners still aren't adhering to the city law.”
And while the National Guard was practically called out for the Arapahoe High School shooting of a pretty white girl from a wealthy suburb in Colorado two weeks ago, the world little notices just another violent crime in Chicago’s most disadvantaged neighborhood.
It certain that president Obama barely notices.
Instead, he goes on vacation to Hawaii.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against a president going on vacation. But when Chicagoans, who were very much responsible for electing Obama, face this kind of siege, I can think of a few low-key things that a president can do instead of jet setting with the over-privileged, rich white folks at the beach.
For example, he could go vacation at home in Chicago and help the city get a grip on the violence that plagues his hometown.
I applaud Al Sharpton for at least facing the crowd, even if I deplore his attempt to prop up the administration.
In Obama’s own neighborhood of Hyde Park the Chicago Tribune says that there have been 117 violent crimes in the last year…just in that one neighborhood. That comes out to about 4.68 violent crimes per 100,000 resident per year. That’s twenty percent higher than the national average according to statistics provided by the FBI.
In 2011, the FBI reported that there were 3.86 violent crimes reported per 100,000 for the nation as a whole.
But the Hyde Park violence is nothing compared to the crimes that the most violent Chicago neighborhoods produce.
The Chicago Tribune keeps an online database of crimes, including murders, and according to that record, the three most violent Chicago neighborhoods are East Garfield, Chatham and Washington Park- the later two neighborhoods near to Obama’s Hyde Park address. Each produced 532, 745, and 405 violent crimes respectively for the year with a total population of around 64,000.
That would work out to an astonishing 2,628 violent crimes per year per 100,000 residents, or nearly 680 times the national average.
The city is on pace to post about 434 murders in 2013 versus 507 in 2012. So sometime between eggnog with Uncle Fester and those socks you’ll never wear, 8 more people will die in Chicago.
Sure, a president can’t do much about murder rates in cities. But he could have done something while he was there. He got a promotion, while the city was left behind to die from blight.And he continues to make the same phony arguments that got Chicago into this mess.
Just call the City of Chicago another one of the “known associates,” like Rod Blagojevich, Antoin Rezko and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who ultimately got burned by their association with Obama, who has conveniently forgotten the many places from which he came.
The Tribune keeps statistics on the blight created by liberals like Obama, including a roll of the dead, right here.
And while much of the media gets stories wrong, the Tribune can be commended for their admirable work shining a spotlight on the Great Blight of murder and violent crime that is Chicago.
In headlines that read like Bulldog Drummond novels, the Trib keeps the heat on politicians who have failed the most vulnerable neighborhoods:
Man, 44, shot on Near West Side, 4 others wounded across city- July 11th
8 shot in four hours overnight across Chicago- August 9th
1 dead, 10 wounded in South and West side shootings- July 6th
But unfortunately this story doesn’t turn out with someone charging in last minute to save the day.
Instead, “someone” did what liberal politicians love to do: He made a pilgrimage to the beach, to drink some wine, eat some cheese and catch some rays.
But he didn’t go to Chicago, did he?
Merry Christmas Chicago: You’re my kind of town, even if the president hates you.