You know what I hate? People who don’t know fuck all about Chicago trying to use it as a point in gun control debates.

Here is my stock response:

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Okay, let’s just settle this Chicago gun bullshit, because nothing pisses me off more than people who know nothing about Chicago using it to prove a non existent point.

First, the argument that Chicago has the most restrictive gun laws in the country is based in ignorance. There was a ban on handgun ownership during Mayor Jane Byrne. That’s 1982. That ban was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2010, and we have had concealed carry since 2013. (Just for fun, look up where the shootings really picked up speed. Go on. Have a look.)

They also like to say Chicago is the “Murder Capital of the US”.

Nope. Per capita, not even in the top ten.

That said, yeah. We have a problem. But it’s not the one they’re using as their “gun control slam dunk”. Chicago Police Department takes an illegal gun off the streets an average of every 75 minutes. And they are replaced just as quickly. 

That is because although Chicago has somewhat restrictive gun laws, the rest of Illinois does not. And Indiana,  a fifteen minute drive from the south side, has never heard of gun control. 

Chicago is a fucking island.

Now, the poor areas are being bought up by the wealthy, because damn that’s valuable real estate.  Those who live there are forced outward. Meanwhile suburbs are actively keeping the poor out with everything they’ve got. Those who are trying to move outward are pushed back in.

Where do you think the shooting happens? Where do you think the desperation is? 

The groups on that outlying area, near the suburbs form gangs to protect themselves from the incursion of the groups being pushed outward. 

The groups being pushing outward form gangs for protection because they are in a vice and have nowhere to go.

The police are the enemy of both, and seldom do anything that dispels that notion.

And the guns are very close. Just across that city line, in the burbs. I mean feet from that city line, because the gun sellers know that capitalist axiom, “Location, location, location”.

So these kids send people to the city line to get the guns, and they send them to Gary to get guns, because that’s how you solve problems,  isn’t it? Guns? That’s what the world tells them. Scared? Get yourself a fucking gun! It will keep you safe!

So, you have a shitload of scared kids playing army with live rounds, because that’s what they learn. The ones who survive to adulthood carry that with them. They never learn otherwise, because guess where school funding disappears?

Just like the NRA says. You NEED one.

THAT’S fucking Chicago.