According to WBBM, the local CBS affiliate, there were more murders during the month of August, when 90 people were slain. So far this year, according to the Chicago Tribune on Monday, “At least 3,662 people have been shot in the city, 1,106 more than during the same period last year.”
WBBM noted this morning that on Halloween night, 20 people were shot in the city.
Where is it all heading? Straight to Hell, if one listens to the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a grassroots gun rights organization based in Bellevue, Wash. In a Monday news release, CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb suggested that “the continued slaughter is proof that the city’s strict gun control laws are an abject failure.”
“This continuing savagery in a city that stubbornly resists every attempt to reform its restrictive gun laws, which only discourage and disarm law-abiding citizens, is a testament to the failure of gun control,” he said.
Police Supt. Eddie Johnson yesterday acknowledged that “It’s our repeat gun offenders that are driving all this violence, and until we get tough on sentencing gunmen – holding them accountable – we’re going to keep seeing this cycle keep continuing.”
More than 20 years ago, CCRKBA was part of a coalition that pushed “Three Strikes and You’re Out” and “Hard Time for Armed Crime” legislation to take recidivist violent criminals off the streets. Gottlieb was part of that effort.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has promised to hire 970 new police officers over the next two years, WBBM reported. But that’s only a partial solution. It is rare that cops are on the scene when a violent crime occurs, and Gottlieb contends that it is time for the city to take another tack on dealing with violent crime by removing obstacles to law abiding citizens who want guns for personal protection.
“Maybe it’s time for Chicago leaders to take a lesson from Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke or Brevard County, Florida Sheriff Wayne Ivey, or even Detroit Police Chief James Craig,” he contended. “They’ve encouraged their citizens to be legally armed as a deterrent to violent crime.”
Chicago’s bloody weekend had another distinction. With 17 slayings, it nearly matched the number of homicides posted in Seattle for the entire year to date. Seattle Police yesterday told Liberty Park Press that so far this year, the city has posted 18 criminal homicides. There have also been two officer-involved shootings that were fatal.
WBBM said if the killings continue at their present pace, Chicago could post 726 murders by the end of this year. After all, two full months remain in 2016.
