By Sam Hoober, GunBelts.com
Both sides of the gun control/CCW rights debate have long looked at the city of Chicago as an example of why their point of view is correct. The Second City has also long been inimical to the rights of law abiding citizens to own firearms, as the municipal government there has been devoted to restricting ownership and carrying for a long time.
About as long, in fact, as criminals have been obtaining firearms there regardless of laws restricting the rights of the citizenry.
In short, Chicago is a microcosm of the “gun issue.”
Gun control advocates generally don’t hate people having freedom; they just believe – misguidedly – that problems can be solved by prohibitive legislation. And so it goes for so many other prohibitions as well. In the case of firearms, they think that gun violence can be curbed by outlawing firearms or prohibiting concealed carrying.
It is true that Chicago has a high rate of violent crime, and especially violent crime involving firearms. This year is already on track to be a record year for violent crime in Chicago. In the first quarter of 2016 alone, according to the Washington Post, there were 677 shootings, almost double the amount from the same period of 2015. There were 141 murders in that city during that period.
Chicago’s violent criminals even managed to give the city a Mother’s Day gift – just not one anyone wanted. During that weekend, according to the Chicago Tribune, there were more than 50 shootings, which included 8 fatalities. During the early hours of Saturday, May 7, one man was fatally shot and 14 more were wounded in a 3 ½ hour period – a rate of one shooting every 14 minutes. By April 20, 1,000 people had been shot in Chicago since the start of 2016; the number of murders had climbed to 196 by the end of Mother’s Day 2016.
Gun control activists typically will point to figures and instances such as these and say “See that?! That’s the reason that guns need to be outlawed; no one should be legally allowed to carry except police” or something to that effect.
It isn’t an “old saw” to insist that limiting access for everyone will curb criminal gun use, or that most gun owners are among the most law abiding citizens. In fact, the people who actually commit violent crimes with guns are an extreme minority. Chicago’s gun violence, according to police, is largely driven by 1,300 known individuals, out of a city of more than 2 million residents.
Illinois was the last state to pass a law allowing concealed carry with a permit. The original ban on concealed carrying in that state was enacted in 1949, with further amendments to their concealed carry ban added in 1962 and 1968. At the time, the city of Chicago was undergoing a wave of violent crime (the 1968 Democrat Convention notwithstanding) and naturally, lawmakers at the time (as many do now) felt that allowing the concealed carrying of a firearm would only result in more crime being perpetrated.
Illinois law holds that to purchase a firearm or ammunition – any type of firearm – one had to possess a Firearms Owner Identification Card. However, handguns in the city of Chicago had to be registered. However, the law was changed in the early 1980s that basically refused to recognize any handgun registrations – thereby outlawing handguns. This law was still in effect until 2010, when it was overturned by McDonald v. Chicago, followed by Illinois’ concealed carry permit law. However, the law only affected law-abiding citizens; criminals were (and are) still getting illegal guns – regardless of that law or any other.
Since McDonald v. Chicago and the passage of the Illinois concealed carry law, numerous Chicago CCW permit holders have begun arming themselves. Not only that, legally carrying Chicagoans have been thwarting crime. For instance, a Chicago Tribune article records two instances between January 7 and January 15, 2016 of retail employees defending themselves against armed robbers; a liquor store owner/operator on Jan. 8 shot and killed two would-be armed robbers, and on Jan. 14, a T-Mobile employee shot two armed robbers who fled the scene and were later arrested when they emerged at an area hospital. Both had valid CCW permits and neither were going to be charged – because they stopped crimes.
Many instances exist of businesses firing employees for defending themselves and coworkers; the regional manager for that T-Mobile store was quoted as saying “Thank God for concealed carry.”
So, in short – “Chicago gun control” is a microcosm of all the sides of the “gun control” debate. On the one hand, there is gun violence and it exacts a terrible toll on communities all across America. However, it’s being done by a minority of people, largely not at all by law-abiding gun owners, and it is happening regardless of current, former and proposed gun control legislation. It is happening despite the best efforts of the nation’s police forces, embattled by controversy though they may be.
And one of the few things that the average citizen can do to protect themselves is to get licensed to carry and arm themselves – which is what gun control advocates want to keep us from doing. Granted, many of them have good intentions which are namely to keep people from harm. But, as ever, it only ends up making it easier for the ruthless, barbaric few to harm everyone else.
Sam Hoober is Contributing Editor for GunBelts.com, a subsidiary of Hayden-based Tedder Industries, where he writes about gun accessories, gun safety, open and concealed carry tips. Click here to visit GunBelts.com.