Carol Marin brought on top notch group of innovators to WTTW‘s Chicago Tonight to resolve the gun violence issue.
Dexter R. Voisin, a Ph.D from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration told us that more spending on education is the answer. Voisin noted that spending per student in Kenilworth is higher than spending per student in Chicago, and surmised that this spending keeps the gun violence down in Kenilworth.
Fr. Michael Pfleger called for tighter gun laws and more government regulation to stop the violence. Carol Marin repeatedly asked “But when is the violence going to stop” in rhetorical display of courage unmatched since the Founding Fathers.
But, none of the panelists noticed the actual trends in violence in Chicago. Murder hit a 40 year low in Chicago in 2007. The number of students murdered is down 25% from the last school year to the present one. Maybe it is time for the U of C Sociology Department, Fr. Pfleger and Carol Marin to declare victory.
After all, we have locked up at least 1% of our population in Chicago, passed and enforced rabidly authoritarian measures to prohibit gun ownership, subjected our youth to a prison like experience in attending school, all in the name of protecting our children from violence.
So Carol, Fr, and Dr…you win. The issue is solved. Perhaps it is now time to get on with why much of Chicago is still so wretched, despite the victory of the authoritarian Left.
Maybe magnanimity in their triumph could result in the Left permitting Wal-Mart to sell fruit and vegetables in Chicago. Perhpas our betters at U of C will allow for teachers actually interested in education to break the monopoly of the public schools. Perhaps now, we have the strength to ask The Syndicate to step aside from the Illinois Healthcare Facilities Planning Board, and let Medical Clinics open in the City.
The Left has shown us by locking up a good chunk of our population, they can accomplish their goal of reducing gun violence. Now how about letting a bit of freedom peep through the cracks so that people can get on with their lives?
Gerald says:
How much tighter do Illinois gun laws have to be? Law abiding citizens have to have a FOID card, which is a pre-pre backround check by the Illinois State Police to even look at guns, and you need the card to buy a gun and ammuntion. Then if you want to buy a gun there is the Brady check, all things that the chicago gun thugs don't do, again legally.
In a five year study by the FBI called “Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation’s Law Enforcement Officers.”
Two things the good Fr. Pfleger should know, predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. What was available “was the overriding factor in weapon choice,” the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun “because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being.”
Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was “hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.”
One other fact to throw out there, Illinois and Wisconsin are the only two states that don't have some semblance of a concealed carry law, while all the gang bangers and criminals are armed to the teeth, the law abiding citizens of Illinois have to meekly hand over the $$$ and do what the armed thug who pays no attention to gun laws says because I don't have the right to defend myself in Illinois.
Dan Kelley says:
Politicians like stirring the pot on guns because the manufactured controversy helps to publicize their activities and closes of scrutiny of discussions that they would prefer to avoid.
Has anyone ever asked Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has collected record sums from parking and traffic tickets and fines, why he needs additional taxes since he has a huge new revenue stream that was unavailable to any of his mayoral predecessors?
It is an obvious question, but it has been totally ignored.
Jim Bowman says:
But how can murder be at a 40-year low and students' murders down 25% when the headlines and pictures and rallies say otherwise. And what's this data business? Confusing, that's what.