Emanuel & Rauner Respond To Trump Administration's Latest Chicago Dog Whistle
By aaroncynic in News on Oct 4, 2017 3:51PM
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sept. 11, 2017 / Getty Images / Photo: Win McNamee
At a press conference on Monday, Sanders claimed that Chicago had the “strictest gun laws” in the nation (it doesn’t;), and that, due to the city's gun violence problems, the city shows that gun policy restrictions don't matter.
“One of the things that we don’t want to do, is try to create laws that wont stop these types of things from happening. I think if you look to Chicago where you had over 4,000 victims of gun-related crimes, they have the strictest gun laws in the country and that certainly hasn’t helped there.”
While at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday, the Sun-Times reports that Emanuel questioned this logic. He also renewed his call for national legislation that could prevent people from crossing state lines to buy guns in states with more lenient laws.
“If you really want a gun, you can just drive over the Indiana border and get whatever you want,” Emanuel said. “That’s why you need national gun legislation that prevents gang members and criminals from getting their hands on an assault weapon that is not meant for the streets of any urban environment.”
The mayor also told reporters he wished that the administration would take “responsibility and accountability for something.”
Chicago’s gun laws are mostly on par with legislation other major American cities. Roseanna Ander, the founder and executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, told DNAinfo in 2015 "at this point, we're probably fairly comparable. I think in New York and Los Angeles, both cities have pretty restrictive gun laws." Chicago’s handgun ban ended in 2010, conceal and carry became legal—with some restrictions—in Illinois in 2012, the City’s gun registry ended in 2013, and its ban on gun shops ended in 2014.
According to the crime lab, about 60 percent of guns recovered in connection with an arrest between 2009 and 2013 came from out of state.
Meanwhile, Gov. Rauner was asked about gun control, but instead of offering any specifics, he spoke about mental illness and his desire to have a “dialogue” about safety.
“No easy answers, but I look forward to having the ongoing dialogue and see what we can come together as a society to deal with mental illness, deal with behaviors that are so outrageous like to try and prevent it,” Rauner told the Tribune. “I think all of us should take a moment to remember and to keep the victims and their families in our in thoughts and prayers and I hope we can have an ongoing, constructive dialogue about what we can do to keep all Americans safer.”