Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
I just saw this article and I had to report on it here. A Chicago woman is grieving the loss of her 4th child to gun violence. Her child was one of Five people shot and killed overnight in Chicago. “Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother Shirley’s youngest child, was shot in the head Saturday while sitting in a parked car on the city’s West Side. A 21-year-old man who was also in the car was wounded, police said. Shirley Chambers, whose two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago, was left grieving again on Saturday, WLS-TV reported. “Right now, I’m totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son,” Chambers said.
Shirley Chambers’ first child, Carlos, was shot and killed by a high school classmate in 1995 after an argument. He was 18. Her daughter Latoya, then 15, and her other son Jerome were shot and killed within months of one another in 2000. “What did I do wrong?” she asked Saturday. “I was there for them. We didn’t have everything we wanted but we had what we needed.”
Chambers said despite this latest tragic chapter in her life, she’s not bitter or angry. “They took my only child. I have nobody right now. That’s my only baby,” she said. MSN.com
How can anyone see this continued gun violence and not be angered and want to do something to stop it? Reasonable gun control won’t solve all of our gun violence problems, but it is a good start. We have to deal with poverty, unemployment, drug abuse and the failed war on drugs also. However, some of these 5 people might not have died if guns were not so easily obtainable. What do you think? How can we reduce gun violence? We must start to act now or it will never get any better.
The lady should move to Steubenville. Its a law and order town in Ohio.
Dr. X:
Gunrunning is a class 1 felony in Illinois, with a penalty of 6 to 30 years in prison, so I guess that hasn’t been much of a success, either.
While regrettable, the kid was sitting in a parked car in gangtown and got popped in the head. The gangbangers aren’t going to turn their guns in and they don’t buy them at gun shows. While this woman’s life is a tragedy, cherrypicking one single heartbreaking example and holding it up to illustrate the need for sweeping legislation is a tactic that you would be against with respect to other social issues.
Toward the end of your piece, you point out correctly that we will also need to work on other social problems such as poverty and education, but the sad fact is that we’ll see knee jerk gun control legislation or perhaps executive orders enacted but there won’t be an iota of attention focused on this nation’s other deplorable social conditions that place us squarely in the category of third world nations.
I’d just as soon keep my right and ability to protect myself and my family in the free for all that the United States has become.
is this Chicago’s Newtown???
Is this what has to happen to make Chicago TAKE action? This can’t continue at this rate. Gun laws are necessary but are only one piece of it. These kids are being raised in a gang culture and have no regard for life at all. Prison time is a badge of honor. If they try to leave a gang, they get killed just like Ronnie did.
Nobody cares about these kids and they know it!!!! These neighborhoods are crying out for us to help them. For us to give a shit about them.
Someone who shoots a gun has an awful lot of hurt inside them.
We must work on the root of the problem – that pain, suffering and hurt.
Edwin, you do understand that the illegally owned guns in Chicago often come from places that don’t have strict gun laws? That said, the horse is long out of the barn in the United States. It’s not as if we’re going to disarm Americans. The question would be is there anything that we could do that might attenuate the flow of guns straight into the hands of violent criminals.
I’m not going to debate that question, but what I would say is that I’d like to see us do something about the insane war on drugs. From what I read, the victim of this homicide had 29 arrests on his record, including felonies and he did prison time. At least some of those arrests were drug related.
He was released from prison recently and he claimed he was turning his life around, helping a young rapper give up his gangbanging ways. Who knows what happened, but the drug war contributes in no small measure to the violent crime problem in the Chicago communities that are plagued by gun violence.
BUT! BUT! BUT! The national suicide pact insists that no law can be passed to restrict the private ownership of guns! In fact we really must over turn the ban on automatic weapons.
Rafflaw,
Okay, so explain to me how Illinois’ and Chicago’s gun control laws have been a success, or at least, not a failure. I have a personal interest, as I have a daughter who insists on living there, and she would really like to have a handgun for self defense, but she couldn’t carry it legally, and even purchasing one would be a bureaucratic nightmare, so that’s kind of a problem for her.
Meanwhile, back home in Virginia, one of my other daughters just applied for her concealed carry permit — at the insistence of her police officer husband. As he explained to her, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Open carry is legal here without a permit, and Virginia is a “shall issue” state for CCW permits. Our crime rate, particularly for murder, is quite low by comparison to Chicago (or to Washington, DC, right across the Potomac from my inside-the-Beltway home).
For your information, there is no “gun show exception.” Anyone in the business of buying and selling firearms has to have a federal firearms license and must conduct a background check prior to selling a nonexempt firearm (that is, generally speaking, any firearm made after 1899 that is not a muzzleloader), no matter where the transaction takes place. I was at a gun show three weeks ago; the line for background checks was quite long. The reality is that only people in the business of selling firearms can justify paying the booth fees.
If your concern is with face-to-face, in-state firearms sales by non-dealers, a very small number of which take place at gun shows, that would be a different matter. Those are legal without a background check. Basically, you have a few guys wandering around silently with printed 8-1/2 x 11 signs stating that they have something for sale; they aren’t allowed to solicit, so only those with an interest talk to them. But those sales, when they do take place, could take place anywhere.
I have read the Heller opinion a number of times, quite closely. Scalia’s comments in Heller on “reasonable restrictions” refer to such historically well-established things as prohibitions on possession by convicted felons and persons who have been adjudicated mentally ill, as well as possession in sensitive places such as courthouses. The catch-phrase “reasonable restrictions” as thrown around by gun control proponents seems to cover a lot more ground than that.
By the way, I eliminated a felony in Illinois three decades ago: People v. Alejos, 97 Ill. 2d 502 (1983). Anita Alvarez was one of my opponents in the 1980s. She remains one of the worst prosecutors in the USA. Anita Alvarez echoes the word of “Scarface” hinself, Al Capone: “Capitalism is the racket of the ruling class.” Read a book, my brother. . .Over and out.
Porkchop,
I am aware that Illinois does not allow conceal and carry and I am glad of that. You are forgetting the gun show exceptions to purchasing a firearm. You are also misinformed about gun control laws being a massive failure. Once again, take a look at Scalia’s comments in the Heller case. He admits that even the Second Amendment can be subject to reasonable restrictions.
Rafflaw,
You are misinformed about the state of the law in Illinois. McDonald v. Chicago (and the Heller decision in DC) addressed only the possession of handguns within one’s home. It is still illegal in Illinois to carry or possess a loaded firearm outside one’s home (the only state with such an absolute prohibition on both concealed and open carry). In order to even purchase a firearm legally, one must obtain a state firearms owner’s identification card. We may disagree on whether the FOID should be required or constitutionally can be required, but, at present, it is.
Given that the shooting took place while the victim was in a parked car, it seems clear that the shooter was already in violation of Illinois’ gun control laws, by carrying a loaded weapon in public. Perhaps I am only speculating here, but the kind of people who go around shooting people in parked cars generally already have criminal records and could not obtain an Illinois FOID anyway. Illinois and Chicago “gun control” laws have been a massive failure.
I sympathize with the woman who has lost so many children, but place the blame where it belongs — on the person or persons who did the shooting.
It is simply not obvious that “taking any guns off the street or making them harder to obtain, can only help.” This seems to be an article of faith among gun control proponents. Many disagree with that, and the evidence (John Lott, et al.) seems to point the other way. More concealed carry seems to lead to less crime.
I don’t think the Chicago gun laws were stricken down like you think. Prior to the recent Supreme Court decision, it was not possible to legally buy a handgun in Chicago, because the Chicago city gubmit would not give anybody a permit, or something like that. The only ones who could legally have them were people who had them (grandfathered) before the law went into effect, and they had to have a permit that had to be renewed every year, and the city would not give any prospective new owners a permit. That is what was changed, as I understand it, as a result of that court decision. I think they still have to get permits, and the city has to give people one if they pass the background check (but I could be mistaken about this), and who knows what other kinds of red tape, including getting an Illinois Firearm Owner ID Card, which most gang-bangers and other hoodlums are not going to pay any attention to.
Swarthmore,
You are right. We have to start somewhere.
As a former appellate defender in Chicago, and a former resident of Chicago, that’s what happens in “K-Town”. William Julius Wilson did his groundbreaking research in “K-Town” and created the term the “underclass” to describe the denizens of “K-Town”. In his book “When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor”, Wilson described the deprivation of Chicago’s West Side. Unfortunately, when this vital tome was published in 1996, Wilson left the University of Chicago for Harvard. I am certain that the Nobelists (Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Barack Obama) in Hyde Park did not notice his absence. Over and out.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/01/26/chicago-moms-march-for-gun-control/ We can mobilize and defeat the NRA, but it will be difficult.
Darren,
I respect your professional background, but taking any guns off the street or making them harder to obtain, can only help.
OS,
You are right on both counts. The fix, if you can call it that, is not just gun restrictions, but dealing with mental health, and taking corporations out of the prison system and ending the wasteful war on drugs like marijuana.
A top to bottom reform of mental health services in this country is needed, starting with making it easier for mental health professionals to get paid enough to live on. Many managed care operations limit a patient to six visits a year with a psychologist or psychiatrist. What the hell is that about? It is about saving the Benjamins so the CEO can have his mansion(s) and private jet. F**k the patient. If they kill themselves, it saves the insurance company money.
Then there is the matter of the private prison-industrial complex. Does any rational person believe the people who own the private prisons have any motive to decrease crime by eliminating stupid and draconian drug laws? Who owns these operations? The wealthy class, who get wealthier by keeping a vast number of people locked up as long as possible.
I personally do not agree that limiting access to guns in general is going to stop crime, why would a person who is willing to murder another person and thus committing a capital offense be deterred by a misdemeanor gun possession violation?
I agree that reducing some of the blights caused by social issues would be helpful but it is not going to be sufficient. It involves breaking a culture of violence. But I don’t think our society would be willing to pursue the steps that would be required to quickly reduce the crime wave.
In the area I worked, gang violence and property crimes was the dominant reason for felonies in the area. What finally brought these rates down was through a combined enforcement of the laws which decimated the leadership of some of those gangs. The next step was to target the mid level gang members through incarceration and if applicable deportation. Over a period of two years the crime rate for one particular town dropped by half and the felonies by a greater percentage. THis was done with no change in the rate of poverty in the town or any other social programs. It also required a very visible police presence which again is something that others might not want.
The two prongs that I don’t think the public will accept is to route these criminal street gangs by actively targeting the crimes of the members of the gangs and incarcerating them for enough time that they age out of the street gang mentality. But our society is resistent to LE sweeps or long terms in prison. Putting people in jail for a month for a First Degree Assault only leads many hard criminals to repeat the offense over and over. I am not advocating putting someone away for ten years for stealing a case of beer, I am talking of the violent, hardened offender that is going to be a recidivist most of his young adult life if alllowed to be.
The second prong is to revamp the juvenile justice system, which works well for otherwise decent kids that make a mistake, but it is counterproductive for budding criminal youths. The juvy system slaps them on the wrist and emboldens them to go on criminal rampages because they know nothing happens to them. I have know bangers who have admitted to me they actually looked forward to juvy because they got to play video games and it was considered a badge of honor in their sub-culture to get locked up there. In short the juvenile system should be more like a boot camp type of rehabilitation clinic where the youth are made to rehabilitate or spend longer time in treatment. But I don’t think our society would agree to the cost of this.
Some could have a good argument to legalize drugs. I am in favor of this for Marihuana and the likes but not hard drugs such as methamphetamine. If meth was freely available the cost to society in terms of health care and other social costs would far outweigh the benefit of legalization due to the destructive nature of the drug. I do wonder if legalizing mj would cause a number of people to abandon other drugs as the mj would be a good enough substitute. That would take a lot of money out of the gangs.
Edwin,chicago had some of the most stringent gun laws until they were stricken down. Have you read the Heller case? In it Justice Scalia even stated that common sense restrictions on guns are allowable and may be necessary. Get rid of gun show exceptions and make everyone who buys a gun, in any way, to have to go through a background check. We have to do it when we coach kids teams, but we shouldn’t when buying a gun?
Check out the graphics:
Gun Ownership Is One Way Americans Lead The World (INFOGRAPHIC)
by Katy Hall and Chris Spurlock
Posted: 01/24/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/americans-guns_n_2536099.html
Excerpt:
With a current population around 315.2 million, the U.S. has about 86 guns for every 100 people — far more than any other nation. Yemen, the number two country, has 54.8 guns per 100 people. Israel, which is surrounded by neighbors bent on its destruction, has 7.3 and tight controls on assault weapons.
The report crunched more numbers:
With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States is home to roughly 35-50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns, heavily skewing the global geography of firearms and any relative comparison.
The U.S. also leads wealthy nations in gun homicides, with a rate ten times that of other countries in NATO. This doesn’t say much for the NRA’s calls for more Americans to arm themselves and their schools in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.
This nation chooses guns over people.
The military explains it all: “collateral damage.”
With the utmost sympathy to this woman, I am going to state right now that “reasonable gun controls” (whatever that means, which is usually more infringements on the 2nd amendment rights of law-abiding citizens) would not do a damn thing to stop this. This was in Chicago, after all, which has already got some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country. This is an example of how well they have worked. (NOT)