Why "Chicago" is a Bad Gun-Rights Argument [View all]
I wish I had a Dollar for every time some pro-gun commenter used the argument that the gun violence in Chicago proves that gun control doesn't work. They say this as if it really makes sense. On pro-gun blogs they repeat it so often that they've actually begun to believe it.
Unlike some of our friends, Frail Liberty for example, I put a good deal of stock into the Google-search-engine method of determining statistics. Searching for news results on a particular subject, although not comprehensive by any means, is a good way of obtaining a rough idea of what's reaching the news. DGUs, for example, appear to be about 100 times less frequent than gun misuse. Allowing for the very reasonable argument that DGUs of the brandishing kind don't make the news, one can make the appropriate allowances and come up with a fairly accurate idea of what's what.
About Chicago, there's an interesting thing to be found in Google. Almost every single incident is gang or drug or criminal related. Weekends when a dozen people are killed and scores wounded, you can usually find not one case of lawful gun owners going bad. In other places where gun restrictions are less onerous, domestic violence by formerly lawful gun owners, work related shootings by formerly law abiding gun owners and other like incidents make up a major percentage of the gun crime. Not so in Chicago.
Of course Chicago has some hidden criminals like any place, but due to the strict gun control, they are far fewer and they make the news much less frequently.
This means that Chicago is a good example of gun control working as it should. In spite of the ridiculous claims of the pro-gun folks, we understand that criminals do not obey laws. The gang members and drug dealers in Chicago are no exception. They easily import all the guns they need from Indiana, Ohio and several other states with lax gun laws within driving distance. But among the non-criminal citizens of Chicago, there is an extremely safe and secure environment, thanks to its gun control restrictions and resultant limited gun availability.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Cross posted on Mikeb302000
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