A View From the Sears Tower's Ledge
Illinois Is Getting Fatter
Mayor Blames Violent Holiday Weekend On Booze, Heat
Kuma's Pats Itself On Back With Block Party
Chicagoan Involved In Mount Rushmore Ruckus
Well this certainly takes a lot of chutzpah. A man robbed a Corner Bakery at 8:45 in the morning -- right in the middle of Terminal 1 at O'Hare. [Trib]
A Zion "father" is charged with beating his 4-month-old daughter to death -- he was apparently angry that his girlfriend had not given birth to a boy. [D-H]
A woman in Melrose Park is accused of stealing $24,000 from the town's Little League fund, and the bad headline puns commence. [Trib]
A bicyclist in Logan Square was hit by a car and killed early Sunday morning. Witnesses are saying that the cyclist "'came out of nowhere' and attempted to 'beat the light,' turning left on a yellow light in front of a Toyota Prius." [S-T]
A 65-year-old man was fatally shot outside his home on the South Side Friday night during a robbery attempt. [Trib]
That gun ban is working out great. A man is in custody after using an AK-47 automatic assault rifle during a shootout with police. The suspect allegedly used the same gun to kill another man at his South Side plumbing business. [Trib]
The violence amongst our city's teens continues: two 18-year-olds were fatally shot on the South Side, when someone jumped out of a car and fired on them as they were walking down the street. [Trib]
It was a violent weekend overall, with reports of 31 people shot and 2 stabbed. Holy shit. [S-T]
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I'm not surprised to hear that anyone, let alone a bicyclist, was killed at Logan and Western. You take your life in your hands at that intersection.
Bicycling hipster that worked at the Apple Store hit by a Prius?
There's an irony joke somewhere...
lol Plumbum I was thinking the exact same thing.
PS: about the dad who punched the baby in the chest a half dozen times -
Is anybody here against the death penalty on that one?
I have to say I've changed my mind on the gun ban. After finding myself in a precarious situation this weekend, I actually would consider getting a CWP if it was legal.
I am still for a nation-wide gun ban with strict enforcement, but a city-wide gun ban is ludicrous.
Thankfully, I didn't have to go Charles Bronson on anyone just yet.
But it's incredibly stupid. Of course the people who are already breaking the law are going to be armed. And law abiding citizens? What are you supposed to do if you find yourself being victimized?
Karate classes?
Maybe if Daley would concintrate on what is causing the vioence instead of just focusing on a tool of the violence. The gun laws we have are very strict but the criminals dont seem to worry about breaking the laws.All the gun laws we can think of won't matter if the causes of the violence arent addressed. that being said assault weapons need to completley banned.
Okay, there's a trend here. I was hit by a car while bicycling on Milwaukee Ave. Thursday evening around 6. I was moving northwest in the bike lane, the car was moving southeast and decided to squeeze through a gap in stopped traffic to make a left turn into the Bucktown library. He popped out of nowhere right into me. My impact with the pavement cracked my helmet into four pieces.
Make of the car? Toyota Prius. The things are dangerous. Somebody should ban them.
Blue,
Enviormentilist are just reckless. You would have heard a SUV comming
Gun Bans ONLY keep guns out of the hands of honest people no matter what level (state or federal).
Automatic Machine guns DO NOT fall under the assault rifle ban. Machine guns are regulated by a government agency where owners who legally apply for a permit to buy them go through a stringent background and tons of red tape. After they are approved to purchase the gun(whose prices start at 10,000 dollars) their door can be kicked in by the feds for as little as an unpaid speeding ticket.
Assault weapons are defined as follows: Semi-Automatic rifles or pistols with certain features such as bayonet mounting, high capacity magazines, magazines not in the pistol handgrip, folding stocks, etc.
So please dont' throw the term assault rifle around without knowing what it really means.
dmaurer:
Why does ANY private citizen need a machine gun?
It is insane.
I don't really care what an assault rifle is technically; I totally support gun bans. I don't care what the Supreme Court says, I don't believe the Constitution as written bestows on us an individual right of gun ownership.
Anything over what is necessary for hunting wild game is overkill.
Dmaure,
I know what an assault weapon is and there is absoultly no reason for them to be legal. yes the definition may be overly broad but assault wepons are not for hunting or self defense. I am against banning guns but there needs to be limits.
When guns are illegal, only outlaws will have guns.
When laws are illegal, only outlaws will have laws.
prohibition doesn't work. It didn't work for alcohol, it doesn't work for drugs and it doesn't work for guns. All it does is make law abiding citizens criminals and make criminals rich.
When alcohol was prohibited it caused most of the breweries in the country to go out of business. It put people out of business, it hurt farmers and it made criminals rich by bootlegging.
Are there people who abuse alcohol? Sure. Should responsible citizens be punished for this? Absolutely not.
A lot of people own guns. Many more than you think. The second amendment clearly states that we have legally own guns. Thomas Jefferson even said that citizens should be able to own guns as a last resort to the tyranny of government.
These statistics get blown way out of proportion and are used as a scare tactic. What isn't talked about are the times when guns prevent a crime.
Why are these times ignored? Because they can't be quantified, if a crime never happened then it isn't a statistic.
Almost all of these shootings are gang related. What are gang shootings about? Turf wars. Why are they protecting "their turf"? Because they sell drugs there.
If drugs were decriminalized and a safe means were created for people, "turf" would become irrelevant and the profit from selling drugs would disappear.
*Sigh* Oh look, a gun debate.
The city's gun ban has done NOTHING to stem violent crime.
It's made ordinary, law-abiding citizens into criminals on paper for simply owning firearms. That's it.
Violent criminals and gang-bangers don't stroll into gun stores to make purchases. They simply buy guns out of state, at gun shows or tap into the hundreds of thousands of unregistered guns on the street.
The logic of the gun ban is that if you don't have a gun in your home it can't be stolen and wind up on the street. False logic all the way through. That initial crime gives police a starting point to track a gun at least, if the serial isn't removed. Remember, most criminals are painfully, painfully stupid, they don't take steps like filing off numbers or getting rid of VINS on cars.
All the gun ban has accomplished is taking away a means of defense from people in their homes.
Assault weapons? How about stealth bombers and grenades? A ban that says I'm too stupid, too dangerous to have a six shot pistol in my house is far more worrying to me than a very reasonable ban on weapons that inflict mass-casualties.
Try being a victim of attempted armed robbery at a Blue Line stop (this past Saturday, thanks you POS) and tell me that Chicago's draconian gun laws shouldn't be repealed.
Considering the effectiveness of the current ban on murder, I can't help but wonder how well further gun bans would work.
That being said, I also wonder just how effective carrying a gun into the Blue Line would be against armed robbers. Seems to me that instead of losing your wallet or whatever and walking away to post on Chicagoist Monday morning, you'd just be setting yourself up for a shootout in which you or innocent bystanders are likely hurt ... which is exactly what's happening in a lot of these shootings. I somehow doubt everone who's been shot lately was unarmed, after all.
All good points Blue, but consider what happened to me:
In a completely desolate spot (through no real fault of our own) with girlfriend and encounter van full of thug types that are obviously up to no good.
As it turned out, nothing happened.
But if things had gone the other way, I would have had absolutely no recourse, no way of defending us whatsoever.
I've been mugged before and harrassed, etc., many times and not really cared that much, but the law as is puts all the marbles in the criminals' hands.
And one friend of mine did use a gun many years ago to effectively stop a crackhead from harming his family in his home.
Defending yourself against assailants is A HUMAN RIGHT.
Nobody loves a gun ban more than a criminal.
@Spav:
So you believe no one does anything wrong and no one should ever be sent to jail, yet think people with guns are wrong?
If I go on a killing rampage with a shotgun, do I go to jail?
P.S.- I consider the homeless "wild game"...
Wait... if we roll back the ban do I get the bazooka I wanted when I was 5?
Re machine guns, couldn't one argue that the best defense against someone with a machine gun is... a machine gun? So, if we're making the argument that handguns are what one needs to defend onesself against handgun crime, isn't an AK47 what you need against a criminal's AK?
I'm not on either side of this issue... or I suppose I'm on A2's side. But I'm confused as to why we're parsing the defense/nondefense issue.
I'd also like to point out that, contrary to what many NRA advocates assert, there is no correlation between conceal carry laws and homicide rates. That is, a significant positive or negative correlation. You might feel safer with a gun, but it has little impact on your actual safety in a statistical sense.
Now, a bazooka, that will keep you safe. Maybe not everyone else, but you... almost certainly.
Vermont has the highest rate of gun ownership in the country. I bet they dont have 37 people shot in 6 months. The guns are a tool for violence what the city needs to adress is the reason for the violence.
Um, I think if you went on a shooting rampage, a decent case could be made that you were insane, or at least couldn't understand the difference betwen right and wrong at the time of the shooting...so no, I don't think you should go to jail.
And I didn't say I thought guns were against the law, I just don't believe we have an individual right to own a gun. That is my baseline for the gun debate.
Then please explain, Spav1 - how do we defend ourselves against those with guns? How do we defend ourselves against individuals who seek to physically harm us or harm our families?
Um, I think if you went on a shooting rampage, a decent case could be made that you were insane, or at least couldn't understand the difference betwen right and wrong at the time of the shooting...so no, I don't think you should go to jail.
I think that successfully claiming insanity (i.e. being unable to differentiate between right and wrong) as a defense is much more difficult than people might think. I think that most of us here would agree that John Wayne Gacy was clinically insane. Insanity as a defense failed to save him, however, because the prosecution was able to demonstrate that by burying the bodies, he was trying to cover up his crimes and was therefore aware that what he was doing was wrong. Hence, he could not be legally insane...
Wait... who are these people terrorizing you JoJ?
Also, what are the ethics of shooting someone in our newly armed utopia? Do I get to shoot someone for threatening me in a bar? What if he says he has a gun? What if he shows me a gun he's got jocked? What if I see JoJ pulling out a gun and I shoot him, but he was just nervous about me? That's ok, right?
If I see someone with a gun chasing a kid looking down from my balcony do I get to pick him off?
In short, what is the threshold beyond which I get to start blowing people away? No more 'defense' mumbo jumbo, please, get specific.
I understand the legal definition of insanity is a very tough threshold to surpass, that being said, I NEVER would have voted to convict John Wayne Gacy because I don't think that any reasonable person could say that he was actually "responsible" for the crimes he committed. It takes an insane person to do something like he did.
I am not saying we should "help" him, but like, I couldn't say that he was legally "guilty" of those crimes. But, obviously, that is not a mainstream view.
I think the case in Tenn where the minister's wife snapped after years of abuse is a great example of a successful insanity defense.
Also: insanity defenses are used in some like like less than one half of one percent of all criminal cases, in part because they aren't usually successful. I think they should be used more: Susan Smith I think is a PERFECT example. I would have argued post-partum depression in her case.
@JawsofJosh:
I don't really have an answer for you. I think statistically, the likelihood of me, a young woman, being involved in a violent crime involving a gun, is pretty unlikely. In the event that I am, the liklihood of my being killed is almost zero. I guess I don't really see the point of attempting to defend myself against a crime that will probably never take place. I literally have no need for a gun.
You get to shoot anyone you want just be able to explain it. read the laws and deciede if your use of deadly force is legal then go blast anyone you feel appropriate
Uh, what about Hitler? Was he just "crazy?" Osama bin Laden? Stalin?
(Realize I've breached Internet protocol with the inevitable AH reference, but when the shoe fits.)
I don't think that my theory of lacking personal responsiblity due to insanity can be projected onto heads of state, who have a stake in keeping you know, the status quo or doing "insane" things to retain power or you know, stamp out opposition. Totally different ball game. Those acts are actually rational at that level and so those types of figures should be held responsible.
Hmmm...I think some people, as perverted as it is, probably rationally get some kind of visceral thrill from dismembering people, etc.. Just because it is depraved doesn't necessairly mean its unreasonable. They are feeding their sense of power, control, etc.
I'm no psychologist however...thank goodness.
I saw an interview with Dahmer and he could very reasonably explain why he did what he did.
Did you see the Dateline interview with Matt Lauer and Dahmer's parents? It is constantly on MSNBC. Good interview, and Dahmer for sure seems not like a lunatic.
Yes the one with his dad before Jeffrey was beaten to death with a broomstick in the clink.
Sick!
@TourismBoard:
The phrase "newly armed utopia" is an oxymoron. You'll find that many gun owners are trained in fire arms because they don't believe in utopia in the first place.
Your response is emotionally-driven and devoid of critical thinking. It sounds like you're possibly afraid of what you might do with a gun if you had one. The remainder of your questions are silly. If you have to cite these situations you've mentioned and ask when are the appropriate times to use a firearm, then you lack the rationalization skills or emotional maturity to own a firearm. If you need me to answer these questions, then you're better off without a gun.
Legal gun owners are responsible people. Gun owners are aware of how dangerous they are, and part of the attraction in ownership involves self-discipline. Every day, millions of guns that are owned by millions of law-abiding citizens harm no one.
For further explanation, there are probably a few Israeli citizens or certain rape victims who'd like to have a word with you.
@Spav1:
Fair enough, you don't need a gun. It's your choice NOT to own a gun. Why should others be denied such a choice because it's different than yours? I have no need to have access to marijuana or an abortion, doesn't mean I wish to cancel that option for others.
Josh:
I think that comparing access to aboritons and guns is horrible and misleading.
I believe the constitution in various ways protects my right to provacy and that this right extends to my body.
I do not believe there is a similar constitutionally protected individual right governing gun ownership.
I am not trying to "take away someone's right to a gun", I just don't believe you even have that right in the first place.
...if you don't believe in that right in the first place, then you see a nicer world than I do, or you've at least you have created a nicer one for yourself.
Your response is emotionally-driven and devoid of critical thinking.
If you'd kissed me you'd have found my tongue in my cheek, but now that seems unlikely because you're all testy.
I'm happy to know that legal gunowners are all such a marvelous lot. But now I'll never know if they're good kissers.
Spav, a right to privacy is not specifically enumerated in the consitution or the bill of rights. Go ahead, read the whole thing. You won't find privacy in there anywhere. Like many of our "rights," the right to privacy is born out of supreme court precedent--not the text of the constitution itself. Some people (not me per se) argue the same type of esoteric reading of the 2nd amendment should occur to vest individuals with a right to gun ownership. If you are going to be a strict constitutional constructionist, however, and argue that it isn't a right because it isn't in the text of the 2nd amendment, you also put other rights at risk that we have come to take for granted. Just saying.
ad:
you have raised a very very good point, and I see where you are coming from; but outside of precedent, I believe the consitution, taken as a whole, would indicate that the framers believed very very deeply in our right to privacy. I am looking specifically at the 3rd and 4th amendments. I also believe that if you read the 2nd amendment, taken into context with the rest of the bill of rights, it is clearly referring to a militia, or collective rather than an individual.
Just my take.