2016 Postmortem
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sinkingfeeling
(51,445 posts)
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)and she was probably killed with a hand gun, like so very many others.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)When you can drive from Chicago to Indiana (or even a town just outside the city) in less than 15 minutes and buy a gun; when straw purchasers are not punished for buying weapons for minors or criminals, you're going to get this. It's separate from the issue of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity clips, which demand their own prohibitions, absolutely. But the issues surrounding uniform federal laws, universal background checks, and prosecution of straw purchasers, the issues are the same.
From today's NYT, specifically about Chicago's problems:
To gun rights advocates, the city provides stark evidence that even some of the toughest restrictions fail to make places safer. “The gun laws in Chicago only restrict the law-abiding citizens and they’ve essentially made the citizens prey,” said Richard A. Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. To gun control proponents, the struggles here underscore the opposite — a need for strict, uniform national gun laws to eliminate the current patchwork of state and local rules that allow guns to flow into this city from outside.
“Chicago is like a house with two parents that may try to have good rules and do what they can, but it’s like you’ve got this single house sitting on a whole block where there’s anarchy,” said the Rev. Ira J. Acree, one among a group of pastors here who have marched and gathered signatures for an end to so much shooting. “Chicago is an argument for laws that are statewide or, better yet, national.”
Chicago’s experience reveals the complications inherent in carrying out local gun laws around the nation. Less restrictive laws in neighboring communities and states not only make guns easy to obtain nearby, but layers of differing laws — local and state — make it difficult to police violations. And though many describe the local and state gun laws here as relatively stringent, penalties for violating them — from jail time to fines — have not proven as severe as they are in some other places, reducing the incentive to comply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/us/strict-chicago-gun-laws-cant-stem-fatal-shots.html?ref=us&_r=0
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)But, I think we are falling into the same trap we've been victimized by before. First, and foremost, we need to rebrand the entire debate... We don't need "gun control" we need to "reduce gun violence" We don't need to ban so-called assault weapons, we need to close all the loopholes that allow guns, any and all guns, to be sold to anyone and left unregistered. The Assault weapon issue is a distraction, far more people, including most children, are killed with hand guns. My son played high school football with a boy who lost a younger sister to gun violence. Today, that boy is a man playing in the NFL and he's now lost a younger brother to gun violence. Another brother will be joining him in the NFL.... Think about that...a mother with 2 sons playing professional sports, who has also buried 2 children because of gun violence.
I could smack Diane Feinstein, and others like her, for being so stupid as to allow the debate to go so far off track as to propose a perfectly useless bill that just brings out the worst in all of us. The 26 dead in Newtown is horrific...but no more so than the 1,424 gun deaths since.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html
frazzled
(18,402 posts)As well as high-capacity clips. It is not a distraction. It is simply a separate issue. Hunters do not need them; target shooters do not need them; people purportedly protecting their homes do NOT need them. Just as they do not need surface to air missiles or grenades or other such military weaponry. It is a sensible, constitutional measure and one that provides a specific antidote to reducing cop-killings and mass shootings. These things are real, and they need to be prevented in any way we can.
I think your argument is rather the one that diverts us.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)bill to ban assault weapons fails?
frazzled
(18,402 posts)You would suggest not attempting something, and not having a national debate about it, because it might fail on the first attempt?
We would never have gotten a Civil Rights bill or many other pieces of legislation had people given up before it began.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)bills that will actually reduce gun violence. I don't see the ban on 'assault weapons' doing very much to accomplish that goal. I do see it ginning up the resistance to any reasonable proposals. This is not the beginning of "gun control" in this country, btw.
http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2003_spr/cook.htm
cash__whatiwant
(396 posts)while mass shootings with semi autos are horrific, they don't account for much gun violence in the U.S.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)"When you can drive from Chicago to Indiana (or even a town just outside the city) in less than 15 minutes and buy a gun"
You can't. That's a federal felony. That's why FFL's check your ID. If you're an out of state resident, they will refuse the sale. The only way that sale proceeds in a legal manner is if the place you purchased it at, sends it across state lines to an FFL of your choice in your state, that also performs a background check on you, and verifies the weapon is legal for your ownership IN THAT STATE.
(A gun dealer in Indiana cannot be reasonably expected to know if you are eligible to own XYZ firearm in Illinois, so this system is in place)
frazzled
(18,402 posts)To drive to another town in Illinois that doesn't have Chicago's more restrictive laws is perfectly legal.
To get an Indiana resident to buy you a gun is totally easy. Northwest Indiana is like a suburb of South Side Chicago. Or you can use a fake Indiana address (these gun sellers are not picky, and the prosecution is lax in that state).
Also, if you'd read the article you'd see:
More than a quarter of the firearms seized on the streets here by the Chicago Police Department over the past five years were bought just outside city limits in Cook County suburbs, according to an analysis by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Others came from stores around Illinois and from other states, like Indiana, less than an hour’s drive away. Since 2008, more than 1,300 of the confiscated guns, the analysis showed, were bought from just one store, Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, Ill., within a few miles of Chicago’s city limits. ...
In New York City, where homicides and shootings have decreased, the gun laws are generally seen as at least as strict as Chicago’s, and the state laws in New York and many of its neighboring states are viewed as still tougher than those in and around Illinois. ...
Chicago officials say Illinois has no requirement, comparable to Chicago’s, that gun owners immediately report their lost or stolen weapons to deter straw buyers. Consequently those outside the city can, in the words of one city official, carry guns to gang members in the city with “zero accountability.”
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)You just described a straw purchase, a federal felony.
"To get an Indiana resident to buy you a gun is totally easy."
That's a felony. This is a uniform federal law. Compounded charges since the crime occurs across state lines, as an aside.
"Or you can use a fake Indiana address"
Still a felony, plus perjury and who knows what else.
Lax enforcement of current federal laws on firearms transfers is not evidence in support of your earlier statement: "Which is why we need uniform FEDERAL laws"
We do need uniform federal laws, which we do have quite a lot of already pertaining to the specific issues you just raised, and we also need ENFORCEMENT of those laws, otherwise they might as well not exist at all.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)They said it was part of a new effort at streamlining and efficiency and some other such happy bullshit. But it just means that there are 15% fewer resources on the street. Here's the thing: the gun laws in Chicago are very similar to those in New York, yet Chicago's homicide rate is exploding while New York's is at the lowest level since the early 1960's.
It's not the laws, it's the climate and the resources.
And regarding other posts in this thread regarding purchases outside Chicago -- this from the NY Times:
More than a quarter of the firearms seized on the streets here by the Chicago Police Department over the past five years were bought just outside city limits in Cook County suburbs, according to an analysis by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Others came from stores around Illinois and from other states, like Indiana, less than an hour’s drive away. Since 2008, more than 1,300 of the confiscated guns, the analysis showed, were bought from just one store, Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, Ill., within a few miles of Chicago’s city limits.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Seattle is surrounded by municipalities with the same state wide gun laws you see in Indiana. We don't have this issue. Some additional issues need to be addressed, some economic opportunity-wise, some debt forgiveness in the housing sector (still waiting for the main street bailout goddamnit) and some investment in the community. Controlling for gun violence alone is just a part of the issue. Worth doing, but a half measure.
Chopping the police force is horseshit. If they got more efficient, they should be hiring more officers, because they don't have enough as it is. What does it take to bring in federal disaster-type relief to boost their budgets? Nothing fancy. Not drones, or armored swat vehicles, just good old reliable officers on the street. How about relocation incentives for officers that might be laid off elsewhere?
I would also encourage Indiana to bring some of their gun laws up to the standards of Chicago. How is it possible two neighboring populations have such disparity in gun laws? Someone on one side of the fence or the other is doing something wrong. But bring the nation up to that level? I would argue against that. My state doesn't need it. (Though I would like to see no private transfers, that way guns sold in my state don't end up so easily, perhaps, in yours)
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)is that outside of the metro area around Gary, the state is pretty much blood red. There are a couple of counties that turn blue, but not many. And outside of Indianapolis, it's pretty rural. In short, getting more restrictive gun laws in Indiana is an uphill battle.
former9thward
(31,984 posts)You can't go from Chicago to IN and buy a gun. It has to go through a FFL holder. Straw purchases are already against federal law. But don't let facts get in the way.
RKP5637
(67,104 posts)in other countries that would not visit America, because they thought it was too violent a place, I can only imagine what they think now ... anymore.
hack89
(39,171 posts)even in a place like Chicago, the gun violence is limited to a handful of neighborhoods.
Most Americans live in safe areas - just as an example, I live on an island with 45,000 residents. We have had exactly three murders in the 12 years I have lived here.
And lets not forget that violent crimes in America have been steadily declining for 30 years and are presently at historic lows.
valerief
(53,235 posts)RKP5637
(67,104 posts)must appear it's the entire place, which is not the case.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)....that's Hollywood for you.
They thought it was all Indian attacks and Gangsters,...as in, Jimmy Cagney types.
Meanwhile, we STILL have NYC cops who have served for 30 years and never had to pull their gun.
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Not sure if that's sarcasm or irony, but you get the idea.
I think confiscating all guns would be a good first step. Hunters have to keep their hunting guns locked up somewhere and can only retrieve them during hunting season.
I haven't worked out any other details, but if other countries get by just fine without guns and (this is just weird) without thousands of their citizens dying every year from guns, then why can't we?
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)unique way of dancing and the Obama girls loved it. Then, they said that they had practiced at the Obama girl's school
