Death Toll Continues to Rise in the Liberal Model City for Gun Control

By Jordan LaPorta

On Friday night, 6 people were killed and 12 more were injured in various gun violence incidents across Chicago, Illinois, police have reported. The disparate incidents are part of a larger continuing trend of high gun violence in one of America’s most gun-controlled cities.

USA Today reported in April that in 2016, murders have increased by 72 percent, while shootings are up 88 percent from the numbers reported by Chicago P.D. in 2015.  Police reports indicate that the surge is directly related to gang violence and contained to the city’s South and West sides.

Because of the high death toll, the city has earned the colloquial nickname of “Chiraq”, which Barack Obama acknowledged in 2007 when he pointed out the higher number of gun deaths in his hometown than those suffered by American soldiers in Iraq over the same period.

Even after the 2010 Supreme Court Case McDonald v. Chicago, which incorporated Second Amendment protections and ended the city’s hand gun ban, the Windy City still has remarkably tough gun laws. While liberals would love to argue that the decision has compounded the problem, it is important to note that the overall number of murders reported has fallen since the McDonald decision in 2010. While Chicago’s numbers are on a recent upswing, the city reciprocates the nationwide pattern of decreasing numbers of gun homicides since 1991.

The Chicago Police Department reported a total murder count of 390 through December 20, 2014, according to the Chicago Suntimes. That number means Chicago was able to record their lowest number of murder totals in close to five years for the second continuous calendar year, despite an overall increase in shootings, a statistic unheard of before McDonald.

Nonetheless, the governments of Chicago and the state of Illinois  have decided to maintain the status quo of gun control, despite poor results in practice. Chicago currently has an assault weapons ban in place — a policy that liberals are calling for nation-wide. The city also requires that stolen firearms be reported to the police immediately, and that the government be made aware of any weapons transfer within 48 hours.

Furthermore, the city mandates that any gun owned in a home with a person 18 years or younger must have a trigger lock and be stored in a locked container or on the body of the owner at all times. As of 2014, gun stores can only be located in certain areas of the city and all sales must be videotaped for potential police review. Citizens are also limited to one gun purchase per 30 days.

Logic holds that such strict provisions and tight regulations would prevent gang members from getting their hands on firearms. But a Northwestern Law School study determined that a majority of Chicago criminals purchase their weapons on the black market, outside the scope of state and local limitations. Newsweek noted that of those committing gun crimes inside the city limits, “only a trivial percentage obtained them by direct purchase from a store.”

Such statistics naturally have liberals clamoring for harsher transfer regulations, but they fail to see the futility of expanding a system that is already being circumnavigated. Nothing illustrates this more than the current mass failure to adhere to the 48-hour transfer report rule.

Whether the left likes it or not, Chicago is the perfect case of disarming and handicapping law-abiding citizens, while creating a system that enables crime to perpetuate.