Gun Control: Exhibit A

In January, 1982, Chicago became the first U.S. city, ever, to enact a freeze on handgun possession.  Residents who purchased and registered any handguns prior to that date were exempted from the provision.  Now, over 36-years after enactment, how successful has this prohibition on handgun possession been?

Not very.  Despite this widely publicized City of Chicago prohibition on handgun possession (post-1982), gun wounds and deaths continue as if that prohibition didn’t exist.  For this year’s first full weekend of July, for instance, 24 people were shot, 4 fatally.  Going back to this year’s Memorial Day weekend, the statistics show 36 persons shot, 7 fatally.

For a longer-term view, instead of a snap-shot, by the end of the first six-months of 2018, a total of 1,436 persons in Chicago had been shot.  That figure is down from the half-year figure for 2016 (2,114) and 2017 (1,932), but it’s up over the first six-months of 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 (without checking on stats for the previous 30-years, but negatives can be assumed).  While the shooting totals to-date may not exceed the high-water mark of 2016, Chicago’s year of gun-fire injuries & fatalities is once again off to a very negative start.

And a reminder that this is a city that has had strict gun possession provisions in place for over three-decades.  Proof positive, for Chicago at least, that “gun control” is ineffective in preventing harm to residents.  And we all know why.  Good, upstanding citizens will obey the legalities, while the proverbial “bad guys” will not.  Regardless of prohibitions, the criminal element will always find ways to obtain handguns and, in all likelihood, use them.  Good citizens are left potentially defenseless against a well-armed criminal element.  And the proof is in the numbers above.  Those shot are not always good people.  More often than not, it’s bad guy against bad guy.  But they are residents being shot regardless.   Innocent persons, too, may end up being wounded or worse, from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when bad guys go at each other.

Maintaining our Second Amendment right to “bear arms” is a must.  Not only for the defense and safety of individuals against criminals, but for the original intent of the Amendment: the defense and safety of citizens against a federal government gone rogue.  Our nation’s Founders were brilliant in their vision.