Chicago & Policing (new title)

[AdamG]

(2) I don't think you can try to deal with the issue of gang violence without gun control.

Look at the parallel - we try to control weapons when we're doing stability ops in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else, don't we? At least to a degree. I agree that the problem isn't entirely guns, but it is at least part of the issue here. Good on Daley.

Swell idea, if only it worked...

Violent crime is worse than ever, say Pcs on the front line
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 2:15am BST 28/04/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../nelect227.xml
Gun, knife and gang crime is the worst it has ever been, according to a survey of 1,200 front-line police officers.

Meanwhile, taking a page out of the Kavkaz.org (a Chechen War thing) playbook, Jeremiah Wright continues to sprinkle gasoline on embers in Chicago and elsewhere.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-w...eremiah-wright

[tequila]

Kavkaz = Jeremiah Wright / Bill Moyers interview = Chicago gangs increasing crime?

Sorry, I'm too busy laughing my ass off.

Also, why does the average Chicago cop on the beat need an M4? Seriously, are the Gangster Disciples or the Latin Kings targeting Chicago cops in straight-up firefights? Or is Mayor Daley's second cousin now employed at Colt?

[zenpundit]

I too live in the Chicago area, though no longer in the city proper.

Daley, who never travels anywhere without a swarm of armed police detective-bodyguards, has always been in favor of gun confiscation since his days as a State's Attorney for Cook County. Chicago bans possession of handguns unless they were registered prior to 1982 and the rest of Illinois has stronger gun control laws than 43 other states.

What Chicago does not have - and what you will not see due to Daley machine alliances with organized crime, including street gangs - is gang control.

[MattC86]

Sorry it took so long to respond to the beating here. I'll just say this. The Chicago Tribune did a bit a few years ago called "Homicide: Scourge of a City," and claimed that since Daley's election, violent crime had dropped in Chicago by 50%. Murders under 500 a year for the first time in 40 years. Heck, I'm 22 and I can remember when they were well over 900. I won't chalk it up to gun control - you all clearly know more than I do. But he's done a good job with crime in general, and while he's pushing his anti-gun agenda during this rash of shootings (apparently the CPD doesn't count, though - the M4s are a bit of overkill), he's also pushing a lot of positive initiatives; after-school programs, increased arts and sports funding for public schools, etc.

And yeah, Ron, you're right - I think an AK or equivalent is still allowed. Not quite "gun control" as we know it Thanks for the heads-up.

Regards,

Matt

[Rex Brynen]

Murders under 500 a year for the first time in 40 years.

Sheesh, we have around 600 a year...

...for the entire country.

[Cavguy]

I lived in Germany for six years with some of the most restrictive gun laws on Earth. I seem to remember very few gun homicides or gun armed criminal gangs roaming the streets engaging in shootouts. I also remember that every gun incident made national news. Most crimes were done at knifepoint, IIRC.

When we first moved back here to Leavenworth, my wife (who is German) turned on the 10PM local newscast. Five violent murders and a drive-by on that day alone. I was even taken aback, having not been used to that level of violence in Germany.

After being able to walk the streets of almost every major northern European city and town at 2 AM relatively safely, I really wonder how much our devotion to relatively unregulated gun posession is making us safer. I wouldn't have walked the streets of Richmond, VA (my hometown) or most mid-large sized US cities at 2AM.

[120mm]

I lived in Germany for six years with some of the most restrictive gun laws on Earth. I seem to remember very few gun homicides or gun armed criminal gangs roaming the streets engaging in shootouts. I also remember that every gun incident made national news. Most crimes were done at knifepoint, IIRC.

When we first moved back here to Leavenworth, my wife (who is German) turned on the 10PM local newscast. Five violent murders and a drive-by on that day alone. I was even taken aback, having not been used to that level of violence in Germany.

After being able to walk the streets of almost every major northern European city and town at 2 AM relatively safely, I really wonder how much our devotion to relatively unregulated gun posession is making us safer. I wouldn't have walked the streets of Richmond, VA (my hometown) or most mid-large sized US cities at 2AM.

Murder rates have little to do with guns, imo, and more to do with traditions of individual violence and "obedience to the law".

Give US police the power of the polizei, and a populace that will accept that power, and crime rates would plummet.

But if one wants safety, one could volunteer to be locked into a little cage.

[Ken White]

Sheesh, we have around 600 a year...

...for the entire country.

Even though handguns are virtually banned...

Did I not read a year or two ago that the RCMP had been accused IIRC of underreporting? No matter, let's say it's accurate. Just proves Canadians as a group are less violent than Americans. Good for you.

[selil]

Starting in the mid 1990s substantially less violent crime occurred as it literally dropped off the charts (the 1970s and 1980s were horrible). Some would say it was increased policing as Clinton claimed. Some would say that it was increased incarceration of criminals as Bush version 1 said. There are sociological possibilities found in Friedmans book touting increased abortion rates after Rowe v. Wade that decreased unwanted humans able to commit crime in the 90s.

In any regards my favorite is the advancement of "Make my Day" laws and increased civic mindedness and personal responsibility ethos.

The fact remains though that current crime is much less than it used to be. It is also a fact that locations with more restrictive gun control laws see more crime than areas with lax gun laws. There is correlation but not necessarily causation.

Chicago is not that bad off. Gary Indiana has about 1 murder for every 1000 people a year. A rate that equates to the homicide rate in Baghdad on a per capita basis. Gun laws are a red herring used by politicians to polarize the masses on both sides of the debate and frame the argument in a manner that makes it virtually unsolvable. If they wanted to fix the issue they would break up the gangs, destroy the nexus points in the organizations, and handle the situation like a counter insurgency. Unfortunately there is more money in maintaining the problem than fixing it.

[AdamG]

Hooray for Daley!

Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders when the city's population was over three million, resulting in a murder rate of around 29 per 100,000, and again in 1992, with 943 murders when the city had fewer than three million people, resulting in a murder rate of 34 per 100,000.

Following 1992, the murder count slowly decreased to 705 by 1999. In 2002, Chicago had fewer number of murders but a significantly higher murder rate than New York or Los Angeles, a situation which city police attributed to entrenched gang violence.

http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webpor...ORIAL/04AR.pdf

And for 2006? Still coming at Highest Urban Murder Rate in the US, numba one wit' a bullet!
In Chicago, homicides through the first 11 months of the year were up 3.3 percent compared with the same period in 2005, reversing a four-year decline. A police spokeswoman said gang violence has been a contributing factor. (qu'elle surprise. Who we gonna take da gunz away frum, again?)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n2304130.shtml

PS: Daley was elected mayor April 4, 1989, to complete the term of the late Harold Washington. He was re-elected in 1991, 1995 and 1999 by overwhelming margins.