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Why doesn't Vice President Biden take his gun commission to Chicago,
the murder capital of the United States and a place with some of the
strictest gun laws in the country?
Chicago had more than 500 gun homicides in 2012, or roughly 19 per
100,000 people.
By way of comparison, New York City had just 237 gun homicides with
more than three times the population -- only about 3 gun homicides per
100,000 people.
This puts the city of Chicago at more than 6 times the national gun
homicide rate.
Yet in Chicago, it is effectively illegal to possess a handgun
outside the confines of your own home. (Even taking the gun outdoors on
your own property can be illegal.) Long guns face similar prohibitions
outside the home or place of business.
And if you have more than one gun in your household, only one at a
time may be maintained in "operable" condition.
All gun owners must register themselves with Chicago police, allow
themselves to be fingerprinted and take a training course on gun use,
supervised by police officers, in addition to paying a $100 fee.
They must also register each gun individually, at a cost of $15 per
firearm.
In addition, a whole assortment of rifles and shotguns are banned
completely, including many of the so-called "assault" weapons.
These prohibitions are not new to the city. In fact, for most of the
last 30 years, Chicago had even stricter laws than they do today. In
2010, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on all handguns that had been
on the books since 1982. The city continues to attempt to restrict guns
as much as it can get away with without running afoul of the Court's
decision.
Many media elites, who are wealthy enough that they rarely need to
worry about their own personal safety, are saying constantly these days
that the U.S.'s gun homicide rate -- higher than some cherry picked
countries with gun bans -- is proof that we, too, need to disarm our
population.
But in Chicago, officials have gone as far as they can toward an
outright ban and the city has one of the highest gun homicide rates in
the developed world. If the absence of strong gun laws accounts for gun
violence, how do they explain such significant outliers as Chicago?
And how many of these advocates for prohibition would feel the same
way if they had to live in a place with the kind of lawlessness that's
occurring in Chicago, with a murder rate many times the national
average?
The Vice President's commission on gun control ought to start there
in the murder capital of America. And the House Republicans should
immediately begin hearings on how the gun control laws now being
proposed have worked out for the people of the Windy City.
The answer, as last year's historic gun homicide rate suggests, is
not very well.
Your Friend,
Newt
P.S. My friend James Farwell's new book, 'Persuasion and Power' on
strategic communication and national security is an important read, full
of history. You can read more about it
here.
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