What you get in the most gun-restricted city in America ...

. . . are lots and lots of gun-shot murder victims.  Like last Saturday night/Sunday morning, for example, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:

Five people were killed and at least 12 other people wounded in shootings Saturday night and Sunday morning across the city. 

Well, as dear old Frankie told us so memorably:

On State Street, that great street I just wanna say
They do things they don't do on Broadway

Things like:

Police were questioning two suspects after Deering District officers were able to chase down the occupants of a car who fired on three people, killing a 24-year-old man, about 1:50 a.m. on the 5300 block of South Loomis Boulevard in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The 24-year-old who died was shot multiple times and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was declared dead.

It is worth noting that back in the '30s the "Back of the Yards" district was 'organised' by that ultra-Marxist 'organiser', Saul Alinsky, a role-model hero to that later Chicagoan 'organiser, 'Comrade' Obama!  But let us continue our lively tour of Chicago, er, hotspots that flourish under a regime that resolutely refuses to allow its own citizens the means to defend themselves:

The evening attacks follow the fatal shooting of a 6-year-old girl and the wounding of four other people in Chicago within an hour Saturday afternoon, and 16 shootings, including the slaying of a 42-year-old man, overnight Friday and early Saturday morning. [...]

A 36-year-old man was killed on the 7500 block of South Wolcott Avenue in the Gresham neighborhood about 1:20 a.m., police said. He was at a party on the block, in a back yard, when someone drove by and opened fire, police said. [...]

A 24-year-old man was found dead in a car at the University of Chicago Medical Center about 10:30 p.m., according to authorities. He's believed to have been shot in the back in the 6300 block of South Ellis Avenue in the Woodlawn neighborhood

And so, on and on ad nauseum.  Even the WaPo in an editorial recognises the wickedness of a situation in which the hoodlums can carry guns and the private citizen cannot:

Illinois has the worst gun laws of any state. Only police officers and the taxpayer-funded bodyguards for ex-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley have the right to carry a handgun outside their homes. Everyone else is out of luck.

And it's not as though the evidence isn't all around them:

[S]tates with generous concealed-carry provisions are safe places to be. The wild-west shootouts that the gun grabbers predicted have never materialized. In the 23 years since Florida began allowing concealed carry, 1,976,774 permits have been issued. A mere 0.008 percent of permit holders have been nabbed for using a gun in the commission of a crime. As gun ownership soars to an all-time high, the crime rate continues to plunge.

My only question, which is not solely directed at my e-pal, regular commenter and proud Chicagoan, Hank, is why on earth do the people of Chicago keep voting these corrupt jerks into office?  And whilst I hardly dare raise a whisper of criticism against the greatest singer of them all, I really don't think Frankie told the whole story:

Bet your bottom dollar
You'll lose the blues In Chicago

I suspect you stand to lose a lot more than just the blues on a Saturday night in Chicago!

 

Comments

[Umbongo]

DD

"why on earth do the people of Chicago keep voting these corrupt jerks into office?"

I can only speak from my experience of living as a student in Chicago in the late 60s. It seemed to me then there were two reasons why the buggers kept being re-elected:

1. it was the function of the ward-heeler (sorry, community organizer) to "get out the vote" at election time and if they didn't Mayor Daley could get very upset. But the real work was done between elections: the local community organizer saw to it that public money and, more to the point, public jobs and public contracts were aimed at those who would vote for/support the administration. I'm sure Obama was very good at this aspect of the work. He even managed to get Mrs O got a nice little earner from the University of Chicago hospitals although, ostensibly, the university is a private institution. Unluckily for the U of C it's a private institution slap bang in the middle of then state senator Obama's constituency. A community organizer - or certainly the mayor himself - could make life easy for such an institution but he could also make its life (and the life of its administrators and faculty) a misery. When I was there no-one - and I mean no-one - ever criticed Hizzoner, in public anyway. On election day, the "community organizer" called in the favours:
2. out and out corruption: in the words of another great democrat, Stalin, "it's not the vote that counts, it's who counts the votes". Doubtless we'll see similar activities in London in May at the mayoral election. Don't be surprised if more than 100% of the voting population of Newham votes for Ken.

[David Duff]

I worry about you, Bongers, so young and yet so cynical! And true!

[Umbongo]

"so young . . ."

You just got yourself a friend for life DD (as well as a burst of laughter from Mrs U).

[David Duff]

You mean, I should have gone to SpecSavers?

[Andra]

well, i have risen up out of my sick bed to see what's up with the world and the first thing i see is a bloody great apostrophe in the middle of things!!!
why duff why?

[David Duff]

Perhaps you could give me a clue, Andra, because I have no idea what you're on about.

[Andra]

They do thing's they don't do on Broadway

things duff, things

[David Duff]

Ah, I see! I didn't bother checking the quotes because I just paste and copy them, so don't blame me, blame the lyric site I nicked them from. Anyway, I'm not guilty, Your Honour, please, please, don't send me to Australia!