fox files

Doing it the “CHICAGO WAY”

By denying second amendment rights, Chicago leaders perpetuate a culture of arrogance and violence that they hope to foist on the rest of the nation.

The short time Hadiya Pendleton spent in the public eye was bookended by President Obamas January inauguration—where the 15-year-old performed as part of a marching band—and Obamas February State of the Union address, during which Obama acknowledged her murder just a mile from his Chicago home.

On the January day she was murdered by a man police say is a gang member, Hadiya was just one of three individuals murdered in Chicago. All told, more than 40 people were killed in Chicago during the month of January, making it the most violent start to a new year in that city since 2002.

By all appearances, Chicago is poised to retain its title as Murder Capital of the United States—a dubious honor for any city, but one that no doubt irks the anti-gun element, particularly since Chicago’s bullheaded slavishness to gun prohibition has proven so decidedly deadly. In Chicago, possessing nearly any type of firearm in nearly any location is all but totally prohibited, yet violence is rampant.

Still, more than any other city in the U.S.. save, perhaps, for Washington, D.C., Chicago has disarmed all of the individuals over which it holds influence: namely, the law-abiding. For their part, violent gang members in Chicago could give two shakes about such laws, to which the city’s morgues can attest. Gang members give no mind to the ink spent restricting the possession of an array of firearms, just as they pay no heed to the criminal code forbidding murder, rape, robbery and arson.

And whenever the next senseless and shocking murder grabs headlines, Chicago aldermen will no doubt continue to codify attacks upon gun possession, meaning average, law-abiding citizens will be forced to sacrifice one of the best methods available for protecting themselves and their families: the right to own a firearm.

Meanwhile, Chicago gangsters will continue to arm themselves for the turf warfare that has raged in the city for generations.

But this seems to mean not a whit to city leaders. Even after the Supreme Court ruled in Chicago v. McDonald that individuals possess the right to armed self-defense under the Second Amendment, the city has persisted in denying, thwarting and denigrating any meaningful attempt by Chicagoans to truly exercise their Second Amendment rights.

And with the power these Chicago prohibitionists hold in Springfield, the entire state of Illinois has long been denied the right to carry that most others throughout the nation have been free to practice, and the declining violent crime rates that have resulted.

You’d almost have to respect Chicago’s dogged determination to play out this charade—persisting in denying citizens the right to armed self-defense while violent crime, often perpetrated with firearms, soars—if it wasn’t so deadly, or didn’t threaten the Second Amendment rights of the rest of the nation.

This prohibitionist mindset seems to be ingrained in both political and civic leaders of Chicago, who view the Constitution and legislative process as no impediment to forcing their cultural peccadilloes onto others. Perhaps an admission that disarming the law-abiding has done nothing to stop violence caused by gang members and other violent criminals would be seen as a defeat; or, perhaps they are too myopic to see that there’s a difference between average residents owning guns for protection and criminals using guns as tools of their violent trade. Regardless, Chicago leaders persist, hoping the anti-gun “Chicago Way” will soon become the “American Way”

Take, for instance, the recent actions by Chicago-based Groupon, a website that offers special deals to consumers nationwide and that abruptly stopped all firearm-related promotions—including those involving Right-to-Carry classes-soon after the Newtown, Conn., murders.

Despite the fact such classes deny the opportunity for such classes at discounted rates—as well as many other gun-related deals—to gun owners nationwide. In such cases, company executives thus supplant the role of the legislature and judiciary, denying rights because they feel they know best.

But this is nothing unique in Chicago culture. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, taking a page from ex-mayor Richard Daley’s book, would rather browbeat others than pursue legislation.

Recently, Emanuel shot off missives to the CEO’s of both Bank of America and TD Bank, demanding they halt their banking relationships with Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson or suffer the wrath of Rahm Emanuel and his Chicago cronies.

Just weeks earlier, following  the  Newtown tragedy, Emanuel gathered a cadre of 22 Chicago-area mayors at a press conference calling on city, state and federal officials to pass bans on semi-auto firearms and restrict magazine size, much like the ineffectual 1994 Clinton ban.

In response to NRA’s calls to place armed security in schools as protection, the Chicago mayor used the .limelight to scoff at the association, calling the NRA plan “outrageous.”

Since then, dozens of school districts have taken the NRA’s advice and placed armed guards on school campuses, while Chicago leaders insist gun ban after gun ban must be passed to finally, surely this time, stop criminals from committing violence. Still, “gun-free” Chicago’s murder rate has continued to mount unabated.

It’s public policy of the absurd. As another well-known Chicagoan, playwright David Mamet, put it in a recent Newsweek article regarding calls for renewing the 1994 Clinton gun ban, “The so-called assault weapons ban is a hoax.  It is simply political fodder and appeal to the ignorant…  The ban addresses ONLY the APPEARANCES of weapons.  NOT their operations!”

Chicago leaders hope this ignorance is contagious.  Unless we want our nation awash in Chicago-style violence, it’s up to ALL OF US to STOP attempts by Chicago ‘leaders’ in spreading their gun-hating lies and madness.