By Wayne Pac
Many people are familiar with the “more guns equal more crime” myth. Something of interest is that the Chicago police report that August 2016 was the highest point of gun-related homicides in the past twenty years. Chicago police said 90 people were killed last month by firearm related deaths, a 66% increase from the previous August. Chicago police and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have been saying that gang violence and the “easy availability of guns” are from where the problem stems.
The Chicago PD says they confiscated nearly 7,000 firearms last year alone. “Well is that good?” No, it’s not good. Confiscated weapons sit in evidence lockers forever and never get used for anything other than taking up storage space and tax dollars. It’s a burden for the PD to permanently confiscate firearms. The least they could do is find something else to do with the firearms rather than letting them sit in the evidence lockers forever. The funniest thing is that most of the firearms in evidence lockers aren’t ever returned to the rightful owners or sold to a law-abiding citizen or legal entity after a prosecutors case has been closed. They just sit in there, collecting dust, and collecting tax dollars.
There is an obvious cause for the rise in firearm related homicides, and it’s not because it’s easy to obtain a firearm in Chicago. As anyone who owns firearms knows, Chicago is one of the worst places to be a gun owner. Couple that with the fact that it’s one of the worst places to live related to gang violence and homicides in general. This isn’t due to the fact that “guns are easy for people to get.” It’s because guns are hard for law-abiding citizens to get and protect themselves with. Coupled with the fact that these areas where most of the gang violence and shooting occur are areas of drastically bad economic situations and worse fiscal situations for individuals. They are full of people below the poverty level who have hard times making their life go right so they turn to gangs and violence to try and get by.
This is something that leftists will say can be easily solved by banning guns and cracking down on legal gun owners, who just need that “scary, black rifle” to defend themselves. However, the vast majority of crimes committed with firearms are not committed with rifles. They are committed with handguns. The leftists run with the idea that the populace will be too dumb to realize what is best for themselves, so they want to run your lives, because you shouldn’t be able to run your own life how you see fit.
I have a solution, it’s a very good idea, and hasn’t been implemented in any single one of these areas in Chicago. How about the Illinois politicians lower taxes, institute state-wide free trade, decriminalize drugs, and ensure that victimless crimes will not result in punishments? It’s a great idea that would drastically improve the conditions of lower-class Americans by introducing more opportunities for work, and more money they can keep to themselves. Also to note, it would keep them out of jail!