By: Matt Rosenberg
The July 4 mass shooting at a parade in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park which killed seven and wounded 30 was deeply disturbing and tragic, as all such incidents are. A suspect has been taken into custody and charged today. Again a cry is rising for more gun control. But the media and the public need to understand that the ongoing emphasis on mass shootings and gun control is a losing strategy. It’s easier to strategize smartly if you have a clearer view of the landscape. There are four things crowding the viewfinder:
#1: Many people are using mass shootings for political ends, as a justification for greater gun control. But the fact is that only four percent of homicides in Chicago so far this year, three percent last year, and three percent of national firearms deaths in 2020 occurred through mass shootings.
2022 is no different from prior years: The vast majority of homicides in Chicago and firearms deaths nationally, do not occur due to mass shootings.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times “Homicides in Chicago” database, 321 people have been killed in Chicago up to noon of July 5 this year. Of those 321, 279 have been black, 17 white, 43 Latino, 1 Asian, and 1 “other.” Meanwhile, The Gun Violence Archive tracks mass shootings in the United States, which it defines as any shooting where at least four people are either wounded or killed. And through noon on July 5, there have been 20 mass shootings in Chicago in 2022, killing a total of 12 people and wounding 85, according to the archive’s compilation of data.
So that’s almost double the number killed in the Highland Park mass shooting, and nearly triple the number wounded there. But you won’t see CNN or the New York Times or Washington Post fulminating about those mass shootings. Because they’re primarily by blacks and of blacks. Yet the real hammer to the head here is that of 321 homicides so far this year in Chicago up to mid-day July 5th, just 12 had occurred in mass shootings.
Therefore, just four percent of all Chicago homicides to date this year have resulted from mass shootings. The data align with 2016 through 2021 locally, and 2020 nationally.
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#2: Future gun control legislation is sharply limited by law, particularly by the latest in a string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions favoring gun rights. Legal firearms are here to stay, and robustly so. Sharp rises in urban violent crime make the politics of a renewed “assault weapons ban” all but impossible. In truth, gun control advocates can only nibble around the edges.
Under the the Supreme Court’s June ruling on gun rights, the requirement that gun owners may have to get a state-issued permit to carry a concealed gun in public was upheld. But a discriminatory permissions scheme was struck down. The ruling held that a state cannot require you to give a reason for applying for a conceal-carry permit. The state had tried to maintain that general self-defense wasn’t a good enough reason. The High Court disagreed.
Seeing the handwriting on the wall, other states with overly restrictive standards for conceal-carry will be easing their rules. One is Maryland.
Reeling from the Supreme Court’s ruling, New York state lawmakers approved – and their governor signed – legislation to ban conceal-carry in so-called “special places.” These were defined as transit, schools, street fairs, and Times Square. But criminals will still bring guns to these places, and the new law will be difficult to enforce in most special locations.
However as a practical political matter, New York politicians were going to take whatever was still on the table, as surely will some other states. The laws are not so much to actually deter, but to represent a certain sensibility of progressive good intentions. The tendency will not soon recede.
A similarly cosmetic reaction ensued from Congress to the Supreme Court ruling. Recent federal gun legislation now approved by President Biden closes something called The Boyfriend Loophole. Now you don’t have to be married to have your right to own a gun taken away after a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction. It now applies to intimate partners who are unmarried, too. Okay, that’s something then.
The new national law also moves the needle somewhat closer to requiring unlicensed gun sellers to do background checks on private buyers. But the language changes fall short of an actual requirement. Now under the new law, any unlicensed seller who is selling guns mainly to turn a profit must do a buyer background check. That’s still vague and difficult to enforce. Its real effect may be negligible and is at least very uncertain.
Additionally, individuals under 21 years old who have juvenile felonies or misdemeanor domestic violence convictions may now be disqualified from a legal gun purchase through a background check process. But the new law merely gives local authorities 10 days instead of the old 3 days to complete the enhanced check on under-21 buyers. If it’s not done after 10 days, the sale can proceed. And all this assumes young buyers, including those planning crimes, are playing by the rules to begin with, rather than ignoring them. That’s a very poor assumption to make.
Vice-President Kamala Harris was in Illinois Tuesday and urged a renewed push by Congress for a national assault weapons ban. But although a national ban took effect in 1994 it exempted more than 2,000 types of firearms and required renewal in 2004, which didn’t occur. The New York Times reported in June of this year that, “the appetite for a bipartisan deal to revive the ban, always slight, is now non-existent.” That’s in some large part due to dramatic increases in cities including Chicago in 2020 and 2021 of armed crimes including murder, shootings, and carjacking. Rural and ex-urban Democrats already have guns. Now urban Democrats are at target practice, too. They just don’t talk about it at yoga.
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#3: The relentless focus on “gun violence” obscures a core truth. It is usually disturbed young men at the trigger. People are killing people and often gun laws are not remotely obeyed. The way that parents raise young men at risk needs more attention. The solutions are more human and family-based than technocratic.
The gun used by the 21-year-old alleged Highland Park shooter Robert “Bobby” Crimo III was legally purchased in Illinois. He had also purchased other guns. He has not yet been proved beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty of committing the killings. However it seems fair to say if your son is producing rap videos which depict a fantasy version of a classroom shooting, and an insistent narration that this is his destiny, then he badly needs help. CNN summarizes here several of his disturbing videos.
Other warning signs from the Highland Park suspect were apparently missed or badly underplayed, particularly by his parents. In April 2019, Highland Park Police spoke to the suspect and his parents after they were notified of a suicide attempt. Then in September, 2019, police took 16 knives plus a sword and dagger from Crimo at his home after his family reported he’d said he was “going to kill everyone.” His father explained it away, and later that year served as sponsor for his son’s Firearms Owners Identification Card (FOID), which is required for all legal gun owners in Illinois. Crimo was under 21 so a family member with their own FOID under state law had to sign as his guardian and sponsor.
It gets deeper. Illinois has a so-called “red flag law” which permits the state to revoke an existing firearms owners identification card for six months if a firearms restraining order has been issued to a gun-owning individual upon petition by a family member, roommate or law enforcement officer. Under the law the petitioner could seek to renew the order indefinitely every six months. In any case, no member of Crimo’s family so petitioned the state.
Nonetheless, the broader issue remains that warning signs were greatly evident, and yet his parents and the authorities somehow managed to let a deeply disturbed individual slip through the cracks to become a legal gun owner and then an alleged mass killer. This does not bode well for the hope that more regulation is the primary means to quell violence involving firearms.
In effect, we have two main types of mass killings now in the United States. There are showy mass killings often perpetrated by disturbed young white men. As evidence suggests, they may very well be racist, as in Buffalo; or angry loners, as in Uvalde, Texas; or delusional and self-aggrandizing, as in Highland Park, Illinois.
Then there are the sadly “everyday” urban mass shootings perpetrated in primarily black neighborhoods in cities of various sizes by young men all too ready to settle day-to-day disputes with violent force. The per-incident body count is often lower and the national press attention far more scant because black-on-black crime is a virtually untouchable subject to big media. But far more are killed and wounded overall in these types of mass shootings than in the ones drawing broad national coverage.
However, and as we’ve noted above, mass shootings are still a small fraction of overall firearms-related deaths. Nonetheless, mis-use of guns is a serious criminal, social, and quality of life issue. As any Chicagoan can attest. Armed robberies, organized armed retail theft, armed carjackings, and both non-fatal and fatal shootings are all wretched and deeply hurtful crimes. And all have become disturbingly commonplace in Chicago.
Because sweeping new government rules to restrict gun access are so sharply limited now, parents and families need to look inward and do more to keep their sons on track. The odds of that are greatly enhanced when children are born into married, two-parent households. Particularly in high-risk environments like low-income Chicago communities.
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#4: The best way for the government to regulate what it calls “gun violence” is for local prosecutors and judges to deal more strictly with repeat gun law offenders and other convicted violent criminals. Barring that, get ready for a continuing surge in private gun ownership.
The most effective way for the government to deter what progressives like to call “gun violence” – which of course is committed by people, not guns – would be to detain before trial, without cash bond, the gun-law convicts who’ve been busted again on gun charges. And also to give stiff sentences to criminals convicted of violent crimes and so-called “nonviolent” breaking of gun laws. Rather than light sentences or probation. Violent crimes – to which gun law violators often graduate – would be prevented and lives would be saved.
But as shown by the actions of local prosecutors and judges in cities including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, that too often does not happen. The revolving door is real, and the consequences can be dire. Thus the matrix resolves with one last and all-too-real deterrence option – law-abiding citizens will continue to arm themselves, for self-defense.
Highland Park was tragic and awful, as was Uvalde, and Buffalo, and all other mass shootings which attract national attention. But it is blatant hypocrisy to continue to downplay or ignore black-on-black mass shootings and deadly black-on-black violence outside of mass shootings, which mount daily in our nation’s biggest cities, and many second-tier cities. It is no coincidence these pathologies are most prevalent in the major cities of the Midwest and Northeast, where at the very same time good governance, public sector fiscal prudence, and private wealth have fled or are fleeing.
Preventive medicine against violence in cities like Chicago has to include better risk management through promotion of responsible parenting. It must also include empowering police to make more arrests and advance more murders to prosecution, and to respond more quickly, more often, to high-priority 911 calls. Lastly though perhaps sadly, preventive medicine against big-city violent crime increasingly requires competence with legal firearms.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- New 2021 Chicago data shows 400,000 high-priority incidents where dispatchers had no police available to send
- Gov. Pritzker is still proclaiming Illinois a Covid “disaster area.” How does he do it with a straight face?
- New State of Illinois Financial Statements Show $4.5 Billion Loss For FY 2021, Repudiating ‘Balanced Budget’ Claims
- In a city this violent, Mayor Lightfoot’s outburst against Justice Thomas constitutes a grave dereliction of duty
- Electricity cost rising 50% in much of Illinois and risk of brownouts looms
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
A very well-written piece with lots of detailed information about gun control as it relates to mass shootings. I completely agree with Matt’s assessment.
Great piece as always.
Democrats want one thing and one thing only: score political point using the crisis they simply can’t waste.
Look at todays assassination of former PM of Japan.
A handmade gun was used in a country where guns are illegal.
You can’t legislate evil.
When…Police are not Respected by the mayor or supported by the mayor it doesn’t help Chicago. When BAD older guys give guns free to minors & pay them to use it, when they have no money coming from anywhere else. This all will continue. When minors have a low punishment for shooting someone over the punishment when an adult does it, violence of guns will continue. Many issues why this happening. Both Obama & Oprah lived in Chicago & nothing changed here as these two who understood the issues, became a millionaire & a Billionaire. Why is that?? Why did… Read more »
Democrats target the gun. Republicans target the person pulling the trigger. Crimo is case in point for someone who never should have been allowed to buy a firearm. Some souls immediately scraped all his social media posts before they got scrubbed and they paint a picture of a far left, Antifa type extremist. The snowflakes posted 2 pics of him at a Trump rally, making fun of Trumpers, and said he was MAGA when he was there mocking them. As Salty Cracker said “the rainbow hair was a giveway.” Gateway Pundit did a good analysis of him several days ago.… Read more »
The vast majority of gun deaths are caused by people who are “known to law enforcement.” But a disproportionate amount of attention is focused on high-profile mass shootings. It seems to me that the country needs to focus on the problem of the revolving door in jails and prisons.
Surely we can do better with our youth. For teens who just need to turn their lives around, how about mandatory military service?
But repeat violent offenders need to be removed from society.
Another thought provoking article by Matt. Time for parents to parent.Guns are out there in the millions. Criminals always find a way to get them. Is there a logical answer?
Some of the urban Democrats I know do talk about their target practice at yoga…and post photos on social media.
Yet another great article. The problem starts in the home long before the gun gets to the hand. Something as simple as having dinner together every night as a family, asking your children about their day, turning off the TV, limiting video games and social media would go a long way. The moral fiber of our country is worn thin.
People are emotional about mass shootings. The public has to look at the big picture.
Once again Matt Rosenberg brings clinically dispassionate lucidity to a volatile topic. With the advent of MTV and crime shows abundant, attention spans have been reduced to immediate ten second to sixty minute remedies and pithy bumper sticker policies. With more focus on the mental health aspects, gang violence, and the boomerang effect of feckless prosecutors and judges returning known felons to our streets, we have laws and processes in place, which, when properly enforced, provide a first critical look and foundation to identify potentially dangerous shooters. When filling out a DOJ/ATF form 4473, in light of the Sutherland Springs… Read more »
“The solutions are more human and family based than technocratic.” I agree 100%. We seem to be turning out too many angry young men. But how to encourage better parenting and more stable marriages/families?
This is another excellent article by Matt Rosenberg, author of ‘What Next Chicago – Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son.’ The book clearly spells out the rampant criminal chaos that plagues the city every day and how it is fostered by the pandering politicians. Let’s focus on points three and four in this piece: #3: Mass shootings are often perpetrated by disturbed young men …and… #4: The best way to reduce mass killings and all gun murders is for prosecutors and judges to deal more strictly with the shooters in any circumstance where the authorities are called to respond to threats or… Read more »
I’ve been around and among firearms all my teen and adult life – the Army, hunting, reloading, recreational shooting, firearms competitions of one sort or another from flints to targets in adjacent zip codes. Firearms ownership should require a competency test. Boots on the ground, with classes, tests, firearms and live ammunition. There should be someone, or someones, in charge who gets to decide that you’re too much of a danger to yourself or others to own a firearm. “Sorry miss, come back next month, and try again. We need to start building that consensus now – get it figured… Read more »
Another informative, insightful and cogent piece from Matt. Unfortunately, acknowledging this massive problem does little to address the day to day safety issues in our lives. When you can’t go shopping with your children on State Street, Michigan Avenue or Old Orchard absent concerns for your lives….. “Turn off the lights Gracie”. WTF wants to stick around these urban areas waiting for the politicians, the judges and the social architects to correct something that’s been incubating in our country for the last twenty years. Call a Spade a Spade ! Unless you’re able to isolate yourself and keep the hell… Read more »
Matt Rosenberg’s article is spot on. In my humble opinion, he gets to the crux of the matter… It is in the homes, in families, where more attention needs to be focused. In a recent article about these tragic shootings, and what can be done to stop them, to turn things around, to deal seriously with these issues, John Horvat II Has penned an article which lays out two competing solutions to these issues. One of them has to do with an incredible, overarching surveillance state style attempt to shut these shooters down before they ever get started. It is… Read more »
Thank you Preston, and we will be reading this article you have shared very closely.
Great article and it touches on many realistic points regarding the horrific mass shooting at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. I am deeply disappointed with the actions of certain Illinois politicians that seized the opportunity to openly politicalize the tragic events that took place on July 4, 2022, in Highland Park, Illinois. The victims, their families and friends need compassion, not political rhetoric and attempting to use their current elected office to promote their re-election campaigns. The H.P. shooter has some serious issues and I question his parents, especially the father who signed the application for… Read more »
I want to underline points #1 and #4, and say the author is spot-on. Especially #4: “The best way for the government to regulate what it calls “gun violence” is for local prosecutors and judges to deal more strictly with repeat gun law offenders and other convicted violent criminals.” I’ve voted Democratic my entire life. I’ve lived in Chicago for nearly 20 years. I once strongly pushed gun control legislation. But when we know for a FACT that 3% of fatalities are from mass shootings, as Matt Rosenbug reports here, how are Democrats dealing with the actual problem when they… Read more »
What a wealth of top-drawer sources you have included here David. We are looking forward to going over this in detail. Thank for your work and your diligence!
Great response–a voice of reason. For all of us, there is a precise moment that we say, ‘I’ve had enough’. For me, it was the moment in 2020–I think during the second wave of rioting–where looters/criminals drove SUV’s into the middle of the Mag Mile, PARKED, robbed, loaded their SUV’s, and DROVE AWAY, like a trip to the mall. Whether it was Lightfoot ordering the cops to stand down, or not enough cops, the bottom line is I could not believe that the SUV’s tires weren’t shot out, leaving the looters as easy pickings for arrest. Like Sonny said in… Read more »
Thanks, Jay. And there’s a tie-in to your comment and a pithy little Chicago joke I added in my lengthy post: “ Was this spike caused by access to AR-15s? If you believe that, I have a parking space to sell you on the streets of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago.” As we all know in Chicago, there’s not really even parking spots on Michigan Avenue’s “Magnificent Mile.” And we hope it remains busy in the future, but if crime keeps bumping up, many folks will stay away. I know that I think twice before heading down, EVEN knowing that the… Read more »
Bonus stats: CORRECT #s on ODDS of being Carjacked in Chicago in 2014, 2020, and 2021: Ran some numbers for fun today, trying to tell my friend, “Really, even sextoupling of carjackings isn’t so bad.” Well, it’s always how one subjectively interprets data. Take this for the 8th grade level math that it is: ODDS of being Carjacked in Chicago in 2014, 2020, and 2021: 2021 – 1,800 carjackings 2020 – 1,400 carjackings 2014 – 303 carjackings There are 1 million cars in Chicago, so thus your odds as a car owner of being carjacked: 2021 – 1 in 550… Read more »
Quite so. We also know how to deter many would be homicidal maniacs; banning disclosure of their names and “manifestos” in the press and on the internet. Just as virtually all newspapers don’t print the names of rape victims (in spite of this being a matter of public record in many/most cases,) reproducing the names of these murderers should be verboten.
As in the past additional legislation against legal gun owners is fallacy that will result in no measurable results in the carnage
Great article
This is the kind of article you don’t often see: lots of facts to back up common sense opinions.
It is understandable but tragic that sensational incidents drown out the numbingly common bloodshed on urban streets that takes a far greater toll than the statistically rare crazy or evil young white male you refer to. Laws that disarm or interfere with self defense by law abiding citizens will do little or nothing to reduce either the grinding weekly toll in poor, violent neighborhoods or the crazed killer deliberately seeking headlines and infamous immortality. Unexamined too is the link to psychoactive pharmaceuticals that seem to be a common element of the sensational atrocities. Whether its causal or not is unknown,… Read more »
Yes. I believe that the role of psychoactive pharmaceuticals ought to be looked into. Also, the role of cannabis. Not uncommonly, after an incident like Highland Park you will find that the perpetrator was on or was on and went off or was smoking various psycho drugs. We ought to take a long hard look at the role that prescribed drugs and hallucinogens and cannabis play in these deadly incidents. Also, it seems to me that suicides are more frequent than previously.
That is the question for sure- how do you rewire a culture? I’m sure the Chinese proverb applies, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Articles like this one, getting back to reality and common sense, are a good place to start.
Any surprise that KILLERS have youtube channels these days? We’ve decreased the deterrents and increased the “fame.” It’s always been illegal to kill people. (But we need more laws?) We’re basically rewarding bad behavior. We’re also ignoring the root cause. Sure, guns make it easier to kill but the killers won’t stop killing even without guns. Gun violence is a horrible “symptom” but that’s what it is, and we’re not addressing the real problem. In fact, society glamorizes it. The movies know that it’s crazy people doing this. (Oops “crazy” is not “pc”… too bad.) Look at the 1994 movie… Read more »
Great article, Matt. You’ve covered a lot of bases with facts, honesty and some really good solutions to the “real” problems. There are a few considerations that everyone, from both sides of the aisle need to think about (they all won’t, but it’s worth a try to mention them.) As a society, we need to put mental health issues at the top of the list of ways to resolve difficult issues. This should apply to all parents, mentors & teachers. Secondly, kids of all ages NEED to learn to read, something a lot of them are missing out on. Until… Read more »
Lets do the math. It was reported about 70 or so shots were fired in rapid succession, and 37 people wounded or killed. Did this kid win a marksman championship?
I’m a Chicagoan. The moment I heard Pritzker and Duckworth spewing their gun control rhetoric at that Highland Park press conference I immediately thought of Rahm Emanuel’s playbook for not allowing a serious crisis to go to waste. We have mass murder by the week here in Chicago so where’s the outrage for our city? Oh no problem the machine has it under control I guess.
Although I’m a Republican, I still know a few Dems, and I can personally vouch for Democrats being quietly at the range getting in some good old self-defense target practice. And photos of movie stars on their way to speak out against guns while personally flanked by armed guards don’t go unnoticed.
Sure, and plenty people of color that have to live with the realities of city life are getting trained too….. They are at the range getting trained so that they can protect their home when someone breaks-in during the night. It’s the reality of city life. I see husbands and wives together at the range. We’re all nervous.
308 mass shootings this year, and I visited the data. Scary, especially when I think, ‘oh, ‘look at this one, only 3 shot’. Maybe because of the proximity, though, this one definitely felt different. Jarring. A local. And no quick fix. Banning assault weapons will still take 10-15 years minimum to have an effect–the black market will go bonkers. Parental responsibility, even after the kid’s turned 21, to catch the latent ‘red flags’ that the state can’t seem to find–that’s something to address. I know one’s not supposed to ‘visit the sins of the fathers upon the sons’, but what… Read more »
All good points. One addition to the Crimo story. The State Police had logged the issues suicide/homicide threats made by Crimo prior to his getting any weapons.
But the family made no formal charges or sought help for him. In fact the father helped him get his Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card since he was underage when he filed for it.
Laws are only useful if they are applied and this means, not just the police, but family, district attorneys and judges need to do their part.
My guess is (and I don’t offer this as an excuse for the parents) but my guess is that the parents were more than a little fearful of little Bobby and the havoc he might wreak on them if they refused to help him get a FOID card. And probably rightly so. But in that case they would have been well-advised to seek out psychiatric help and institutionalization if necessary. For as long as it took.
Matt, as always you do your research and put it in a logical well thought out format. At times it seems like an unsurmountable task to counter progressive politicians and the media biases and misinformation that Americans are being bombarded with constantly. Tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth for many.
A lie is halfway around the world before the truth puts on his pants
–Winston Churchill
Matt always has the best stats. Highland Park is part of the North Shore outside of Chicago. Very tony, lots of money. Crimo lived in Highwood, which is a very small area just outside of Highland Park where traditionally the migrant workers lived there & it has bars, since Highland Park was dry for years. Now, it is just a small suburb, with bars & more affordable homes than Highland Park, Wilmette, Lake Forest, Kildeer, etc. Crimo was a just waiting to happen. The parents are divorced, there has been allegations of violence & orders of protection between the parents.… Read more »
The ink he wears is not cheap. From what I see, $1500…$2000. Who paid for that?
Thank you for sharing not only your thoughts but including facts. Most of us know these points but sometimes it helps to have it written in a clear well written format so we may use it in discussions with those that do not, especially those who only argue through emotions. If it’s okay, I’d like to share on my FB page…
By all means, and thank you.
I totally agree. But this serious issue, like Covid, like our border–has been politicized and Congress just uses it to enrage and mobilize. This is a mental health problem. Just looking at that shooter –you can see he was begging for attention.
This is a very helpful addition to the current conversation on gun violence – so glad to see you don’t shy away from some of the “hard topics” that need to be address if we are really to make any headway against mass shootings. Hope lawmakers take notice of your insights.
I believe many people have a misunderstanding about what goes into buying a gun in the first place – background checks aren’t going to help if there’s not a criminal record associated with the person purchasing the gun, and won’t catch someone straw-buying a gun either. You can’t flag law people into not having a weapon based on a mental health diagnosis because it violates their constitutional rights. I think most people are afraid to report loved ones or associates who fit the demographic profile of those who are engaging in mass shootings – isolated young men. Mental health treatment needs… Read more »
Indeed you are right. I have a fantasy/dream where some law-abiding citizen with a concealed carry gun stops a shooter like the Highland Park shooter and makes him do the perp walk into the waiting arms of a policeman who arrives on the scene just in time to read him his Miranda rights!
Your logical expression of this labyrinth is spot on. Yesterday I found myself trying to explain similar thoughts, but in the direct aftermath of Highland Park, I fear it came out cold & unfeeling – which couldn’t be further from the truth. Thank you. I’ve already shared this.
Maybe we should bring back insane asylums and involuntary institutionalization of people who exhibit lunacy, particularly those inclined to psychotic violence. Maybe we should stop prescribing psychotropic drugs. Maybe we should stop telling young white boys that they are permanently stained as evil oppressors responsible for all that is wrong with the world because of their sex and skin color. Maybe we should stop telling young black boys that they are oppressed, and start holding them to the same behavioral standards as everyone else. Maybe the government should stop promoting single motherhood and start promoting holy matrimony. Maybe schools should… Read more »
I was just talking about the institutions. Democrats fought to close those cruel, awful places, of course, without a plan B. So now we have rampant homeless & violence & mentally ill people who need help, free to roam about.
Very true. Good post.
You put to words many of the thoughts in my head. I don’t understand how with so many of the mass shooters there were telltale signs of a disturbed individual. I hate and loath that this immediately became a political talking point. Huh? What? Why? This is not political. All the gun laws and gun talk will not end this. Chicago is the example as you stated with year to date deaths. Does anyone think they had legal guns? This seems to be a mental illness thing. Red flag laws? I’m not sure they work. I’m not sure what they… Read more »
Votes have consequences!!!!!! as long as you keep voting for liberal progressives who are light on criminals, you invite violence in minority neighborhoods. A deranged person will always find a way to commit murder. The left believes that we shall all be rendered impotent to be able to defend our homes and families. The Supreme court Disagrees.
Given the numbers, it’s hard to ignore the glaring absence of BLM and the other racialists who insisted that certain lives matter. Do they? They don’t appear to, given the VP’s rush to pander to people in an affluent suburb while continuing to ignore the urban carnage. The points raised here may lead to some unpopular arguments, but meaningful change is seldom achieved without some discomfort. Dismissing those arguments and the people who make them does not invalidate the points raised nor does it make those points go away. It just ensures that nothing is done and the next time… Read more »
Jelly belly fake governor and Tammy Duckworth went to Highland Park for the rich white folks did not say one thing about the shootings and people getting killed in the city of Chicago I wonder why political mafia🤬
“Got to keep the loonies on the path.” Pardon my Pink Floyd. There is nothing entertaining or anything short of tragic in Chicago and other major cities that have now transmogrified into Killing Fields (oops, another entertainment reference). We focus an inordinate amount of our attention on “mass” shootings, I suppose because of the fact that they are shooting galleries. The intended victims run in every direction and guess which buildings will provide some degree of safe haven. Some make it to safety; some, alas, don’t. Who’s the shooter? What’s his motivation for the carnage? Did his mother not breast-feed… Read more »
Excellent on the point column The hypocrisy of the media and politicians to come running out and make the shootings a political issue If they were doing there job this kid would never have been allowed to purchase guns. If politicians did there job the violent offenders in Chicago would not be allowed on the streets If Hollywood would do there job they would rethink of what they put on the screen If video game makers would do there job they would not put such violent videos games out Bottom line politician look for votes Hollywood and video game makers… Read more »
Very good article, thoughtful and well researched. Sadly, we never see this kind of balanced commentary in the MSM. And why didn’t Kamala go to the south side of Chicago to commiserate with the victims of Black on Black shootings? Over 70 people were shot in Chicago this past holiday weekend. I guess she figures (correctly) that their votes are already locked up.
I’ve been troubled by what appears to be hypocrisy regarding the little outrage over black on black shootings. It seems that the media is simply racist by avoiding any serious reporting and the near complete lack of discussing the root causes of it. Racism might not be the intent, but racism it is. And the general reaction of the public is “meh,” because honestly, we expect it of young black men today. God weeps for us all.
Honesty is still the best policy, but it needs media and public bravery to accompany it. I am not hopeful.
Matt did a good job in addressing the carnage at the parade Monday and the “everyday” shootings across the City. Yes, I too believe that God weeps for us all.
Like I tell people, if this happened in Cook County no one would have cared this much, it would have not reached national news attention because of the narrative. But because it’s in Lake County, the game changed. Sad this had to occur, sad the so many people will be affected by this, but what’s sadder is the politicians using this platform for their anti-2A agenda and to pull some voters for the evil Dem machine for Nov. Keep voting for these out of touch elites in office, they don’t give a shit about you or I. All they care… Read more »
With all of Illinois privacy laws and social groups saying we should not use criminal arrest records to judge a person it will be interesting to see how Illinois will comply with new federal gun laws that require a check of juvenile records.
When are they going to start looking at Hollywood? Just look at the hundreds of mass shoot them upmovies they produce.
These mass shooters are part of the target audience for movies that are all about how to get Revenge on people who Bully you, treat you badly, or you generally don’t fit in. Just get even by getting super firearms and killing everyone. All this while Hollyood are some of the loudest voices calling for Gun Control.
Add in all the violent video games kids and young adults play.
We are an ignoring society. We pay taxes and want the govt to take care of urban blight so we can ignore it. We give kids adderall to try and tame their behavior so we can ignore it.
Chubby couldn’t get in front of the cameras fast enough to start campaigning.
When he volunteered to take questions, he basically was told to step aside, we have questions for the officials handling the scene.
It was truly sickening, the politicians rushing to make it a political story for their future election runs. Castin was the first to issue a statement blaming the GOP, and NRA. Durbin was breaking the speed limit trying to get on the scene.
Duckworth lifted herself up to the podium, to declare tge semi-auto fire recorded on video, was tge same machine gun fire she heard in Iraq.
Shameful opportunists.
They don’t care. They will all be voted back into office and they know it. 97 counties could vote republican but the five collar counties around Chicago tip the scales for the Dems. Add in the usual vote corruption and it’s a landslide.