Gun Control Fails in Chicago

Within hours after the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, the Left including President Obama started calling for stricter gun control.  The inference was clear.  Stricter gun controls would lessen gun violence.  However, history and facts tell a different story.

Chicago, Illinois has some of the Country’s strictest gun control laws.  It also has one of the nation’s highest incidence of gun violence annually.  Here are some facts and figures published by the Chicago Tribune:

• During a 15 hour period last week 14 people were shot in the Windy City resulting in six deaths.
• Last weekend 52 people were shot in Chicago with four dying. This is the second consecutive weekend in which more than 50 people were shot in the city.
• Gun violence has increased by 20% in Chicago over the same period in 2014.
• So in 2015, 2,300 people have been shot in Chicago.

Okay, so gun control does not work where it has been implemented.  Why then does President Obama and his Leftist allies push so hard for doubling down on this failed policy?  Unfortunately liberals are using a canard to cover up for the failings of Progressive policies they have promoted for decades.  These policies have ruined America’s inner cities to the detriment of the minorities forced to live in them.  By putting focus on an inanimate instrument of violence, the Left hopes cover-up the dismal failing of the progressive policies.

Chicago’s Progressive Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former Barack Obama associate, over the weekend did the gun control two step stating: “I’m going to try to control my anger.  We have way too many guns in the city of Chicago.  There are many in Chicago with the right to be angry, but the Mayor is not one of them.  He and his fellow Progressives helped create the environment that led to the disintegration of cities across America.  Emanuel is personally insulated from the carnage protected by armed guards.  He is also able to send his children to private schools.

Yes, there needs to be a discussion about violence in the United States.  The instruments of that violence need to be part of the discussion.  But so too do other key issues including the breakdown of the family, growth of the welfare state, mental illness and the violence of pop-culture in the entertainment industry.  The fact that President Obama rarely speaks of these issues brings into question the sincerity of his comments.