Breakdown In Civil Order

[Jimmy Higgins]

Can you demonstrate that, Chicago's "strict gun control laws" aren't "working", though?

I was answering the question "Why is Chicago the poster child for American violence from the alt right?" I believe it's because they've instituted strict gun control legislation...

...in 1982, and that legislation was banned in 2010. It is currently the year 2022, and gun related murders have increased since the ban was found unconstitutional.

You think Chicago's efforts ended in 1982?

You ain't from around here, are ya boy.
Tom

Chicago's efforts were strangled in 2010, not 1982.

The increase of gun murders has coincided with reduced gun restrictions in Chicago, as per the 2010 SCOTUS ruling, and elsewhere as red states ensure every home has two guns in every pot. It appeared that the status quo was better with the higher restrictions.

I'm challenging the right-wing notion that Chicago is dealing with elevating gun violence despite elevated restrictions. That is a right-wing lie that they have managed to convince the average person is actually true.

 

[TomC]

I'm challenging the right-wing notion that Chicago is dealing with elevating gun violence despite elevated restrictions. That is a right-wing lie that they have managed to convince the average person is actually true.

That's not what you asked and I responded to, though.

I believe that Chicago is the poster child for "gun control laws don't work" because those laws haven't had great results. That's why the alt-right likes to refer to Chicago, rather than cities like Houston.
Tom

 

[Copernicus]

Why is Chicago always mentioned in these threads? Yes, the murder rate in the city is relatively high, but it isn't the highest in the country. Not the top 10 (or top 20) per capita. It isn't even the highest per capita in the state of Illinois.

Prominent Democratic mayor (and a black woman). Prominent Democratic governor. Not Texas. Not Florida.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I'm challenging the right-wing notion that Chicago is dealing with elevating gun violence despite elevated restrictions. That is a right-wing lie that they have managed to convince the average person is actually true.

That's not what you asked and I responded to, though.

I believe that Chicago is the poster child for "gun control laws don't work" because those laws haven't had great results. That's why the alt-right likes to refer to Chicago, rather than cities like Houston.
Tom

The right likes Chicago, but not states. By far and away the state with the highest rate is Louisiana. A very red and very Christian state.

 

[Oleg]

I'm challenging the right-wing notion that Chicago is dealing with elevating gun violence despite elevated restrictions. That is a right-wing lie that they have managed to convince the average person is actually true.

That's not what you asked and I responded to, though.

I believe that Chicago is the poster child for "gun control laws don't work" because those laws haven't had great results. That's why the alt-right likes to refer to Chicago, rather than cities like Houston.
Tom

The right likes Chicago, but not states. By far and away the state with the highest rate is Louisiana. A very red and very Christian state.

Isn't New Orleans very blue?

 

[Derec]

The right likes Chicago, but not states. By far and away the state with the highest rate is Louisiana. A very red and very Christian state.

Louisiana is so very red that the governor is a Democrat.
Besides, the the high crime rate is in cities like NOLA. And NOLA is very, very blue. As in, the mayor and all members of the city council are Democrats. And it is 4th by murder rate, only behind St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit (all Democratic strongholds).
Baton Rouge (#5) is more of a mixed bag. Mostly Democratic mayors(uninterrupted since 2005) for sure, but more a mixed city council.

 

[Derec]

Yes, maybe 30 years ago. Since then, the Republicans have hugged hard to the right, the Democrats since Clinton have become very moderate.

Clinton was elected 30 years ago. In more recent years, and especially since 2016, Dems have swung hard to the Left.

But in the US... today... to say one is an "independent" really says, at best, "They don't care about politics and don't care to understand what is happening."

No, what it means is that neither party fits with one's political views. I think it's the opposite. People who identify with one of the two big parties do not care nor understand much about politics. It is the independents who think about issues and make up their own minds from issue to issue, rather than letting "what is D position on this" or "what is R position on that" dictate what they think.

 

[Derec]

Why is Chicago always mentioned in these threads?

It has one of the highest, if not the highest murder rate among the largest US cities. Much bigger rate than say New York City or LA.

Yes, the murder rate in the city is relatively high, but it isn't the highest in the country. Not the top 10 (or top 20) per capita. It isn't even the highest per capita in the state of Illinois.

The CBS list includes a lot of very small cities. This wikipedia list includes the largest 100 cities in the US. Click on "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter" to sort by it. That list places Chicago at #14, higher than the CBS list because of all the podunk towns the CBS list includes.
The wikipedia list shows why Chicago is so popular as an example - it's the highest ranked major city. It is #2 among cities >1M and #1 among cities >2M in population. In fact, it is the only city >2M and one of only two cities >1M in the top 30.

So it is the most fucked up major US city by nonnegligent homicide rate.
And it has some incompetent city leadership (Lori Lightfoot is nobody's idea of a good mayor I don't think) and has a DA who is refusing to prosecute crime sufficiently.

 

[Derec]

So what are you complaining about? It sounds like your ideal of America is alive and well in Chicago.

Having a gun pointed at you and having to defend yourself is hardly "ideal". This instance went well, but victim could easily have been shot by the robber.

A big problem in Chicago is that Kim Foxx is charging so many felonies such as carjacking as misdemeanors. So the criminals are emboldened knowing they will not do much time if caught.

 

[Politesse]

So what are you complaining about? It sounds like your ideal of America is alive and well in Chicago.

Having a gun pointed at you and having to defend yourself is hardly "ideal". This instance went well, but victim could easily have been shot by the robber.

.

But Republicans want to make it easier, not harder, to acquire firearms. That could only logically result in more incidents like this one. Shouldn't you be thrilled, maybe even a little jealous that this woman got to kill a kiddie criminal, just Iike you guys are always fantasizing about? That's why you want guns in all the kindergarten classrooms, right, to shoot the shooters with? You can't demand to live in a violent totalitarian hellscape 90% of the time, then change your mind and complain when someone puts your ideas into practice just because they did it in a democratic state.

 

[Politesse]

77777997

 

[Oleg]

So what are you complaining about? It sounds like your ideal of America is alive and well in Chicago.

Having a gun pointed at you and having to defend yourself is hardly "ideal". This instance went well, but victim could easily have been shot by the robber.

A big problem in Chicago is that Kim Foxx is charging so many felonies such as carjacking as misdemeanors. So the criminals are emboldened knowing they will not do much time if caught.

If prosecutors would prosecute and not let criminals go free on lower charge, that be good for everyone. Can't have safe neighborhood if crooks know there is little consequence to crime.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Windy City sounds fun;

At least four people are dead and 35 others are wounded in weekend shootings across the city as of Saturday. Two of the victims are under the age of 18.

A teen is shot while attempting to break into a vehicle on the 1100 block of East 52nd Street Friday. Four to five males were attempting to break into a parked vehicle around 7:58 p.m. when a woman, 34, owner of the vehicle, confronted the offenders at which time one of the offenders pointed a gun at the victim, according to police. The woman is a CCL holder who discharged a handgun striking one of the offenders. The offender, a 13-year-old boy, was transported to Comers Children's Hospital by the Chicago Fire Department in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the neck area.

News

Result.

Too bad her marksmanship was off.

The attack was stopped. Not having killed the kid is a good thing in my book.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In 1982 Chicago made with a handgun ban. While the rate of murders didn't drop immediately, there was a drop in the 90s. In 2010, that ban was found unconstitutional by SCOTUS... and then in a couple years, murders have shifted back up. This certainly isn't proof of causation, but it seems that with the restriction of weapons being dropped locally, and outside of locally the small restrictions were lessened beyond those (Indeed, guns are sprouting legs and coming from outside the state, with about 3 in 5 guns coming from outside the state), there has been an increase of gun violence... which is evidence that it is the reduction of gun laws, both local and national that is leading to increases in gun related murders.

In other words, Chicago has seen an INCREASE of gun related murders since SCOTUS ended Chicago's gun ban. So from a surficial look at it, reduced gun restrictions leads to more gun murders.

A comparison over time doesn't really tell you much because the rate has changed everywhere.

The proper comparison to make is how the rate changed there vs how it changed in the US as a whole.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm challenging the right-wing notion that Chicago is dealing with elevating gun violence despite elevated restrictions. That is a right-wing lie that they have managed to convince the average person is actually true.

That's not what you asked and I responded to, though.

I believe that Chicago is the poster child for "gun control laws don't work" because those laws haven't had great results. That's why the alt-right likes to refer to Chicago, rather than cities like Houston.
Tom

The right likes Chicago, but not states. By far and away the state with the highest rate is Louisiana. A very red and very Christian state.

Isn't New Orleans very blue?

Big cities are almost always blue. Rural areas nearly always red. Overall, Louisiana is quite red even though New Orleans is blue.

 

[prideandfall]

Yes, maybe 30 years ago. Since then, the Republicans have hugged hard to the right, the Democrats since Clinton have become very moderate.

Clinton was elected 30 years ago. In more recent years, and especially since 2016, Dems have swung hard to the Left.

No, they absolutely haven't.
Dems, as in the DNC and the political body of the Democratic party, have always been and remain now to be a staunchly conservative status-quo party fiscally and ideologically, though I'll grant you that they have veeeeeeerrrry slowly creeped insignificantly left on a handful of pop-cultural issues as relates to human rights.

But the Dems are not "left" relative to *anything* in the world - not to liberal political parties in other countries, not to American politics historically, not the intangible concept of "liberal" or "left" in a metaphysical sense.
They're a soft-right moderate party, and any attempt to classify them as anything else is the most pathetic and insipid act of ideological bumfuckery imaginable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The CBS list includes a lot of very small cities. This wikipedia list includes the largest 100 cities in the US. Click on "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter" to sort by it. That list places Chicago at #14, higher than the CBS list because of all the podunk towns the CBS list includes.
The wikipedia list shows why Chicago is so popular as an example - it's the highest ranked major city. It is #2 among cities >1M and #1 among cities >2M in population. In fact, it is the only city >2M and one of only two cities >1M in the top 30.

Beware of misleading city size data. What counts as a city for general usage often is bigger than what officially counts as a city. I live "in" Las Vegas--no, I actually live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area but not within the city "Las Vegas" even though mail is addressed to "Las Vegas". Las Vegas has a population of 640k, the county as a whole has 2.2M. Maybe 50k of that actually lives elsewhere, all the others live either in cities that are in effect absorbed (there is no real dividing line) or in unincorporated areas. The "Las Vegas" Strip is not in Las Vegas!

Note that Chicago is #3 for total population on that list.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So what are you complaining about? It sounds like your ideal of America is alive and well in Chicago.

Having a gun pointed at you and having to defend yourself is hardly "ideal". This instance went well, but victim could easily have been shot by the robber.

A big problem in Chicago is that Kim Foxx is charging so many felonies such as carjacking as misdemeanors. So the criminals are emboldened knowing they will not do much time if caught.

If prosecutors would prosecute and not let criminals go free on lower charge, that be good for everyone. Can't have safe neighborhood if crooks know there is little consequence to crime.

Try providing adequate funding for the prosecutors, courts and jails if you want that.

But that would cost money rather than being a convenient bogeyman.

 

[Derec]

Try providing adequate funding for the prosecutors, courts and jails if you want that.

Do you have any evidence that these are inadequately funded in Chicago/Cook County?
And if they aren't whose fault is that in a Democratic run city and county?

I do not think the lack of prosecutions has to do with funding, but rather with Kim Foxx' ideological commitments. She is cut from the same cloth as Gascon, Bragg, Boudin, et al.

The Kim Foxx Effect: How Prosecutions Have Changed in Cook County

But that would cost money rather than being a convenient bogeyman.

Again, who is deciding how to spend money in Chicago/Cook County, if funding levels are even a problem?

 

[Derec]

Beware of misleading city size data. What counts as a city for general usage often is bigger than what officially counts as a city.

Both CBS and Wikipedia use city proper. So they are consistent in that regard.

I do understand the difference between city proper and the metro area. It does not affect my point, which is that Chicago is both one of our biggest cities, and also a city with very high murder rate. That is why it gets so much attention.

Note that Chicago is #3 for total population on that list.

The list uses 2.7M, which is the population of the actual city.