Editorial

Chicago: Where the inmates are running the asylum

David A. Lombardo

I stand corrected. The most idiotic thing I've ever heard turns out not to be Mayor Rahm Emanuel's psychotic need to prevent innocent Chicagoans from carrying a firearm to defend themselves against a flood of violent crime. The most idiotic thing I've ever heard is Chicago's top cop Garry McCarthy's Operation Impact.

Operation Impact is, at first blush, a reasonable tactic aimed at trying to get control of Chicago neighborhoods so violent they make Detroit look like a vacation destination. The premise, swarming high-crime areas of the city with cops on foot patrol does make sense. It is a tactic that has worked elsewhere.

Given the logic of it, it begs the question of who actually came up with the idea; certainly not the dim-witted McCarthy. Let's be realistic, this is the same guy that wants to ban modern sporting rifles (MSR) because they're the weapon of choice of street gangs. The only glitch in the concept is that in both 2011 and 2012 only one person per year was actually killed with a long gun of any type. Banning MSRs to reduce street gang violence is morally akin to banning trains to reduce traffic accidents. Upon closer examination it turns out to be McCarthy's baby after all because the devil is in the details. McCarthy plans to assign new academy graduates to foot patrol assignments in 20 targeted hot zones.

The hot zones constitute three percent of the city of Chicago; the three percent that account for 20 percent of the city's violence. With all due respect to the brave men and women who have chosen a career defending their city, and recently graduated from the academy, this is sending lambs to the slaughter.

Successfully completing the police academy requires dedication, determination and fairly well developed cohones. The only thing lacking is experience and on the mean streets of Chicago, surrounded by hundreds of sociopaths for whom killing a stranger, let alone a cop, is a rite of passage into a gang, experience is the only thing that keeps you alive. These young men and women will rise to the challenge and go do the job but the question is at what price? And I'm guessing Chicago's King Leonides won't be leading his Spartans at Thermopylae. He'll be in his office reading mortality reports.

You'd think the guy who cornered the silver market to make enough stars to put on his uniform would send seasoned officers to the hot spots and deploy his fresh, young troops more logically. Say to somewhat less lethal hot spots such as the Magnificent Mile. Now there's a place they can build some experience with less of a risk factor but the city has a better plan.

Alderman Brendan Reilly proposed Mag Mile businesses should pay for police protection above and beyond the city's outrageously high taxes. Reilly would turn the Mag Mile into yet another cash cow by making merchants pay an additional tax for police protection that is already paid for with existing tax dollars.

"People give millions of dollars to build things in Millennium Park," Reilly said. "Some people like to put their names on museums that would be built in Grant Park. Some of those very families could perhaps take on this cause and make a donation of public safety officers. At a rate of $30 an hour, the price would be right, and they would be far more effective than security officers," he said.

You can't make this stuff up. It can only happen in Chicago where the inmates are running the asylum.

U.S. to sign U.N. Arms Treaty

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has expressed a strong objection to President Obama's turn-around on the United Nations Arms Treaty. Under the Bush administration it was the president's position he did not support the treaty and it would only be viable if all the U.N.'s member states approved it. Prior to his election Obama is on record supporting that position. This week he reversed his position and a U.S. government spokesperson told reporters "It's important to the United States and the defense of our interests to insist on consensus. But every state in this process has always been conscious of the fact that if consensus is not reached in this process, that there are other ways to adopt this treaty, including via a vote of the General Assembly." The spokesperson went on to say that the United States would vote "yes" on the treaty in the General Assembly, regardless of the positions of other member states. By abandoning the requirement for consensus the United States is assuring passage of the treaty by the United Nations. 

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Biden: Gun ban legislation "Just the beginning"

This week Vice-President Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) showed us--once again--how thorough their contempt is for our constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights. According to a Washington Times article, on a Wednesday conference call organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Biden referred to current anti-gun legislation and told his anti-gun supporters, "Let me say this as clearly as I can: this is just the beginning." As the article notes, recent surveys show increasing opposition to stricter gun control measures. But this fact matters not to Biden; nor to Pelosi, who also voiced a determination to continue pushing for gun bans, no matter what the American public says. "I've been to a number of states since this Congress has gone in and many parts of different states and the public is so far ahead of the Congress on this subject. I believe whatever passes in the Congress now will not be the end of the day for this issue," Pelosi said. "This is a very big deal for the public," Pelosi concluded. "But again, it's a legislative body, and we have to go forward as boldly as we possibly can, and I would not say, well, if the assault weapon ban isn't there that that means less is going to happen down the road. I think it means more should happen up the road as we go forward." [Source: NRA/ILA] 

Crooks keep showing up on Bloomberg's

anti-gun mayor's list

Three more names have been added to a veritable rogue's gallery of current or former members of Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns who have run afoul of the law with Thursday's criminal charges against Marcus Hook, Pa. Mayor James Schiliro, the Second Amendment Foundation said today. "Mayor Schiliro is one more example of why we started the 'Gun Owners Against Illegal Mayors' campaign," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. "He joins recently-convicted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and recently-indicted former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, both of whom were MAIG members." SAF launched Gun Owners Against Illegal Mayors last fall, "and the list keeps growing," said Gottlieb. "Schiliro's case is not only bad, but bizarre," Gottlieb observed. "He's been charged with false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, serving alcohol to a minor and other crimes, and he also allegedly used more than one gun in this incident, in which at least one shot was fired. "The allegations against Schiliro creeped me out," he said. "With associates like this, I can understand why Bloomberg doesn't trust people with guns. It is amusing," Gottlieb added, "that Schiliro - who signed an infamous letter to the U.S. Senate with 600 other mayors - has suddenly disappeared from the MAIG roster on that group's website." [Source: Second Amendment Foundation]