Gun Lobby's Troubling Attempt to Overturn Chicago Handgun Ban
(The following is a joint press release from the
Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and the Freedom States
Alliance).
The Illinois Council Against Handgun
Violence sharply criticized the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA)
and Illinois Carry for holding a public rally Friday calling for ending Chicago’s 27-year-old handgun ban only days after the tragic shooting of 9-year-old Chastity Turner
who was gunned down while bathing her dog in front of her own home.
Thirty-six Chicago Public School students were also killed during the
’09 school year in a continuing rash of gun violence.
Most
troubling is the language, tone and materials that pro-gun groups are
using to promote their rally in downtown Chicago. Ralph Connor, an
African-American conservative who will speak at the rally, continues to
preach a divisive message that “gun control is racist” and is eagerly
promoting a film that features him, called “No Guns for Negroes.”
The
ISRA finds itself in a hypocritical and difficult position playing the
race card as an argument to removing the city’s life-saving measure and
pushing for a carrying concealed weapons bill. Earlier this month, the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the Chicago and Oak Park handgun bans
by a 3-0 decision. U.S. Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook, joined by
Circuit Court Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, said they were
bound to follow the precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court in its ruling
on the Second Amendment not applying to states. All three federal judges were GOP appointees.
Yet in response, Hal Turner, an avid racist and internet radio host
from New Jersey was arrested for threatening to kill the three federal
judges who upheld Chicago’s handgun ban. Turner said, “”Let me be the
first to say this plainly; These judges deserve to be killed.”
“The
truth is that the gun lobby could care less about the impact that gun
violence has on Chicago, much less the devastating effects on the
African-American and Latino communities,” said Thom Mannard, Executive
Director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. “All the gun
lobby cares about is their blind and extremist ideology that wants to
force deadly and loaded guns into our communities, schools, parks,
shopping centers, hospitals, and daycare centers. If the gun lobby
really cared about stopping gun violence in our communities they would
stop promoting an agenda that makes it all too easy for gangbangers to
acquire guns that are used to kill innocent children like Chastity
Turner.”
In addition, gun homicides plague the African-American community. According to the Violence Policy Center the annual study, “Black Homicide Victimization in the United States” found that there were 7,425 black homicide victims in the United States.
The homicide rate for black victims in the United States was 20.27 per
100,000. In comparison, the overall national homicide rate was 5.38 per
100,000 and the national homicide rate for whites was 3.14 per 100,000.
“The
truth is that the gun lobby are enablers of violence by stifling and
stopping life-saving reforms to enact stronger gun laws,” said Scott
Vogel, Communications Director for the Freedom States Alliance. “Gun
extremists preach their limited, narrow and selfish view of ‘their
rights’ without any regard to ‘our rights’ as members of a broad
community that want to live peacefully and free from the fear of gun
violence.”
Parents, victims and survivors of gun violence are
focusing on solutions to save lives, instead of debating divisive
racial politics with extremists who show no empathy for those killed by
gun violence,
“As a parent who has suffered the devastating
effects of gun violence in my family, I urge our lawmakers to gain the
political will and moral capacity to support common sense gun
regulations,” said Ron Holt, the founder and President of
PurposeOverPain.org, and whose son Blair was shot and killed on a CTA
bus by an armed teen. “If our lawmakers could hear, see, and feel the
pain that we as parents who have lost a child to gun violence, then
maybe they would understand that we need thoughtful solutions to our
gun violence crisis.”
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Why is the left's answer always "If we just had this one more law , everything would be fine."? The Ron Holt quote about his son being killed by another teen is symptomatic. The teen killer broke how many laws that day? 5, 8, maybe even 10. None of those laws prevented the tragedy. Why does Ron believe one more would have made a difference? Do we need thoughtful solutions? You bet. Those solutions, unfortunately for Mr. Holt, do not involve any additional restrictions on guns . They do, however, involve the Black community growing a back bone, standing up and demanding that their own people begin to take responsibility for themselves. Those solutions do invovle the Black community demanding a return to traditional family structures, meaning a man and a woman in the house. They mean that those who promote/carry out crime be turned in, yes, even snitched on. They demand that the Black community begin to act like they give a damn what happens to their own and stop blaming everything on whitey. I wont hold my breath.
Why is it that some people always want to blame inanimate objects for their plight, the gun did it, i don't have money , Parents should grow up, start teaching your children their obligations in society , Treat others as you would have them treat you. I'm tired of hearing there excuses for their childrens lack of social skills. NO! you may not take away my God given rights or the rights guarrenteed by our constitution in order to make you "FEEL SAFER".
the_car_man
I am curious why so much crime and danger in Chicago. I thought the diligent work of community organizing by Obama, ACORN, Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger would make this area the envy of the nation. Instead, Chicago has the dubious distinction of landing 4 spots on the most dangerous cities list.
No doubt, the Chicago solution is more Gun Control and more coddling of thugs. Of course will have Father Pfleger protest in front of a lawful gun store with the likes of Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton calling for the snuffing out of that gun store’s owner.
Chicago which has become the de facto capitol of Illinois, holding the rest of the state hostage with the failed tired policies and the wholesale corruption which has been the trademark of Chicago since before the days of Al Capone.
Tragically, all these factors create a perfect storm for crime. Your tired and faulty paradigm of disarming the honest citizens, a timid police response due to racial tensions and groups of people whose only purpose of existence is to perpetuate racial disharmony and poverty.
No matter how many times gun bans are proven ineffective; the gun prohibitionists continue spewing their pabulum. Anytime an attempt is made to empower the law -abiding citizen with Conceal Carry measures the same tired rhetoric comes up. The age-old fallacies that people will get into gunfights over parking spots, deadly road rage, and just plain wholesale mayhem never seem to materialize once Conceal Carry is passed. It is obvious that the truth is no obstacle for those that want to maintain the status quo of leading the sheeple to the slaughter.
The bottom line here is that Chicagoans need to clean political house and demand true representation, protection and the ability to defend yourselves. Quit being sheeple and stand up for your right to feel safe in your homes and community. Quit depending on a government that only seems interested in their re- election and self-interest while you languish in a cesspool of crime and corruption. You have the power, only you can fix it, do not depend on the government or community organizers to solve your problems.
These peole are complaining about the title. of a film "No Guns For Negros" I'm willing to bet my 45 that theyv'e neither not watched it, or don't comprehend its meaning. Never mind that Jim Crow laws about firearms ownership by African Americans wee meant to keep the n####r in his place. Never mind that the reason they didn't want African Americans to onwn firearms was that they didn't want to be shot as they lynched whomever, whenever they pleased. Being shot at ratehr takes the fun out of the evening, wouldn't you say? And never mind that the 14th Amendment's authors specifically refered to the "disarmament of freedmen so as to continue the violence agaisnt them" and that the "purpose of ths amendment is to confere all rights of the Constitution including the keeping and bearing of arms as that most signifies the status of a free man".
But no. All these non thinkers and prophets of no gun control doom can see and speak to is the word "negro". I wonder how many of the whiners actually live in the areas that so many of the violent offenders come from, or if they are living in the nice neat suburbs as they spout off more of their "white mans guilt".
It doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand that the 7th courts rulings is in trouble and in all eventuality will result in another US Supreme Court ruling. The reason is really simple, does anyone out there have the ability to prove that the states can or have the inherent right to selectively ignore the portions of the US Constitution they so choose to ignore?
This whole articles premise is built on a house of cards, the 7th courts ruling, and like all gun control propoganda, falls down like a house of cards in a slight breeze!
As to Ron Holt, sorry for your loss, but how is making something doubly illegal going to prevent violence from happening again, and again? Man those anti's never answer a straight honest question, do they?
Wow, in 2007 there were 1.4 million reported violent crimes per FBI UCR and per USDOJ Victimization Report over 5.2 million violent crimes, (means 75% of violent crimes not reported not reported). These are both government organizations so how can you discount their data?
But hey, England banned guns in 1997, a country of 56 million people then, had 457,000 violent crimes reported, yet now in 2007 a country of 60 million they now have 1.4 million violent crimes reported. Wow, the same amount as the US, a country of 300 million.
Murders havent gone down, shootings have somewhat, but all the associated aggravated assaults, rapes and nice stuff that make up all that violent crime has increased dramatically in England.
England, the country we as a nation was formed from, where we drew much from what created our government, laws and culture. So England is indeed similar enough to us as to be an excellent comparison of gun control and its nasty, violent effects on the poor subjects of England. A country where it is essentially illegal for a person to defend themselves from attack (golfers recently charged with assault for defending themselves from a gang trying to mug them on the golf course). To oh so many English politicians giving carte blanche to suggest how to make things easier for burgalers so the crook doesnt become upset and violent agains the home owners. Yep, that is such a fantastic prime example of European civility and gun control that everyone in the US should want to emulate them, right?
So the facts are evident, we urge our lawmakers to gain the political will and moral grounds to stand against the minority extremists of the nanny state. We encourage our politicians to hear and see the pain existing gun control experiments have caused and recognize the absolute facts that gun control damages, kills, and creates more pain than gun ownership by citizens. We encourage our politicians to recognize the terrible truth, that when guns are taken out of the violent crime numbers (447,000 average per year FBI UCR Data), that there are still 1 million more violent crimes being committed.
We hope our politicians are intelligent enough to recognize that guns dont create violence. We hope that our politicians use common sense and eliminate exisitng draconian gun controls, before all citizens with a lick of common sense, begin holding them, and their minority enablers personally responsible for their actions of treason!
None of the CDC, DoJ, nor the National Academy of Science has been able to identify any (ANY!) gun control law which can be shown to reduce any (ANY!) of murder , violent crime , suicides nor accidents.
That is a simple fact.
Even 'obviously sensible' laws such as Brady/NICS background check for firearm purchases are included -- they cannot be shown to work and are in fact not even enforced ON CRIMINALS.
Less than 100 criminals are prosecuted each year for Brady/NICS violations -- and the vast majority of these are because the authorities needed to arrest or prosecute a criminal but can't make the real charge stick, or as a "predicate felony" for a conspiracy or RICO charge.
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/ATF/e0406/final.pdf
Clearly a law that cannot be shown to work, and which is only enforced on the law -abiding is an egregious infringement of freedom.
That is just COMMON SENSE, right?
In a city that has one of the strongest and strictest laws concerning handguns (outright ban) why are people still being killed by handguns?
Logic shows that if the current laws were enforced then there should be zero guns which should equal zero handgun violence but that is not the case in Chicago, is it? By using logic against the very points that are presented in this article they are shown to be inaccurate assumptions of those persons that believe a "perfect world" could exist if we disarm everyone. If you think the police can protect you then you are dreaming. Where were they to protect Chastity Turner?
Wake up and realize police are reactive not proactive. The general public must become the internal police force and police their own neighborhoods to rid them of criminals. To do that, they must be armed and trained to protect themselves and thier families when criminals attack.
Criminals don't follow gun laws , that is why they are criminals. Killers are killers and taking away a killer's gun doesn't change the killer's mental attitude. He'll use a knife or a car instead next time.
Put firearms in the hands of trained law -abiding citizens and you even the odds that a criminal must think about before committing a crime (he might get shot). Because most criminals are cowards, they go find an easier target elsewhere.
Thom Mannard, Executive Director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence states in this article "The truth is that the gun lobby could care less about the impact that gun violence has on Chicago, much less the devastating effects on the African-American and Latino communities,” Tom is wrong and that is NOT the truth. Gun avdocates want the people of Chicago to have the same rights as the rest of the nation to protect themselfs and thier families under the Second Amendment and we want criminals locked up to end the gun violence.
Thom, get the police to enforce the current laws and give the people back thier Right to Keep and Bear Arms to protect themselves. That is how you end gun violence. Be procative, not reactive.
Using logic to argue against emotion. Don't try to use facts when they can so easily be countered with "I know you are, but what am I?" or the ever potent "I'm rubber and you're glue" counterarguments.
Thom Mannard and his friends care nothing about facts. If the did they wouldn't ignore countless studies that suggest you are safer with guns and show beyond a doubt that you are no safer without them. And when all else fails, Thom has invoked the time-honored tradition of playing the race card! Kudos to you Thom.
Because that's exactly what the pro-gun lobby says, right? Guns for all white, heterosexual, protestant, married males with the requisite 2.3 children living in the suburbs and nobody else. WRONG yet again, Thom. We want every law -abiding man and woman to have the CHOICE of whether or not to arm themselves in their own defense. Thom doesn't think you're smart enough, wise enough, or mature enough to make that choice for yourself. Well I disagree. I don't think the government is smart enough, wise enough, or mature enough to make decisions about my personal safety for me. Certainly not while sitting in their ivory tower looking down on the rest of us.
And this statement really slays me: "Gun extremists preach their limited, narrow and selfish view of ‘their rights’ without any regard to ‘our rights’ as members of a broad community that want to live peacefully and free from the fear of gun violence.” Let me make this real clear for you Thom, though I am positive I am wasting my...well not breath, but whatever it is I'm wasting by typing this. The right to bear arms is not "our right" or "their right." It is everyone's right. And if you're trying to take away everyone's guns, who is taking away whose rights? Remember, as of today, the Constitution still guarantees me that right. And if you think that banning guns is going to allow you to live free of gun violence, I would like to refer you to the beginning of your very own article. Guns were banned in Chastity's neighborhood 17 years before she was born, and now she's gone, despite the ban.
It's time for the Freedom States Alliance (I'm choking at the name, too) to come back to reality. "Cross over children. All are welcome. All welcome. Go into the Light. There is peace and serenity in the Light."
You're not making anyone safer except criminals when you take away guns. You can keep telling yourself that you are, or you can look at the proof right in front of your eyes.