Well, I guess you disagree with the law...because that's why we have hate crime laws.
Maybe we should dismiss or minimize attempted murder...you know because the person wasn't actually murdered...and we should criticize and mock them because the bullets missed?!
Ways to reduce Chicago's gun violence are right in front of us and entirely legal. There's too much disinformation being spread and there just isn't enough political will to address it. Reality is that most guns used in Chicago come from places with lax gun laws like Indiana: "Here’s how it works: Chicago requires a Firearm Owner Identification card, background check, three-day waiting period, and documentation for all firearm sales. But Indiana doesn’t require any of this for purchases between two private individuals — including those at gun shows and those who meet through the internet — allowing even someone with a criminal record to buy a firearm without passing a background check or submitting paperwork recording the sale.
So someone from Chicago can drive across the border — to Indiana or to other places with lax gun laws — and buy a gun without any of the big legal hurdles he would face at home. Then that person can resell or give guns to others in Chicago or keep them, leaving no paper trail behind. (This is illegal trafficking under
federal law, but Indiana’s lax laws and enforcement — particularly the lack of a paper trail — make it impossible to catch someone until a gun is used in a crime.)
This isn’t a problem exclusive to Chicago or even the US.
A 2016 report from the
New York State Office of the Attorney General found that 74 percent of guns used in crimes in New York between 2010 and 2015 came from states with lax gun laws. (The gun trafficking chain from Southern states with weak gun laws to New York is so well-known it even has a name: “the Iron Pipeline.”) And
another 2016 report from the
US Government Accountability Office found that most of the guns — as much as 70 percent — used in crimes in Mexico, which has strict gun laws, can be traced back to the US, which has
generally weaker gun laws.
This pipeline makes it impossible for states to stop the flow of guns used in crimes within their borders, since the root of the problem lies in other jurisdictions. The only way the pipeline could be stopped, then, is if all states individually strengthen their gun laws or if the federal government passes a law that enforces stricter rules, from
universal background checks like Chicago’s to
mandatory gun buyback programs like
Australia’s, across all states.
The evidence suggests this could help: Time and time again, researchers have found that where there are more guns and more access to guns, there are more gun deaths."
