Candidates for political office often say things that they don’t mean in the hopes of getting support and votes out of it. And maybe that is the case with a current mayoral candidate for Chicago.
But, seeing how anti-gun Chicago already is and that this guy is already on that bandwagon, the ridiculous thing that he is proposing may be something that he is serious about. Dan Zimmerman gives us the bizarre details:
The first rule of politics: if there’s a problem, blame someone else. It’s always preferable to deflect responsibility onto your political opponent(s) but anyone will do in a pinch.
Chicago has become known by some as Chiraq for its seemingly intractable crime rate and the number of daily incidents involving gunfire. That crime problem and the attendant high number of murders in the Windy City, was a major factor in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to announce that he won’t be running for reelection.
One of those vying for the city’s top job as a result of that impending vacancy is Gery Chico. Showing he’s able to think outside the box, the former chief of staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley is advocating a new approach to Chicago’s gun-related crime problem.
Crain’s Chicago Business has this . . .
“We can no longer take this,” he said at a recent candidates’ forum at Steinmetz College Prep on the Northwest Side. “I’ve said, if we can’t get Indiana and Wisconsin to work with us, we sue ’em, and that includes the Cabela’s gun shop right in . . . Hammond, Ind.”
What do you suppose “work with us” means, exactly?
Just as New York’s former Mayor Michael Bloomberg loved to blame Virginia, of all places, for his city’s gun problems, Chicago pols constantly point the finger at Indiana. And now Wisconsin, too. Chico’s hardly alone in that.
Instead of blaming the failure of their own gun control laws to stem the tide of gun violence in Chicago, Chico wants to say that neighboring states are the reason why Chicago has a gun violence problem. But one has to ask: If easy access to guns in neighboring states is why Chicago has a gun violence problem, then why don’t those neighboring states also having a gun violence problem?
The answer, in case anyone close to Chico is reading this, is that guns aren’t the problem. Violent people are. And gun control isn’t the solution. Armed citizens willing and able to defend themselves from violent predators is the solution.
That’s the truth, and it’s never going to change.