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Journal by Runaway1956

Driving home this morning, listening to Walton & Johnson, I heard that someone is shot in Chicago just about every two hours. The city of Houston was compared to Chicago, because the two cities have a lot in common. Population, and many demographics are similar. Yet, Houston doesn't witness a shooting every two hours. Hmmmmm . . . .

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/last-72-hours?page=8&sort=asc&order=State

That site tracks gun violence. That page lists gun violence for the past 72 hours.* Wow - in all of Texas, two gun deaths. In Chicago, excluding the rest of the state, six gun deaths. To be fair, we are trying to compare two cities - so the tally is Houston - 0 Chicago - 6. Clearly, Chicago is winning.

But, how can that be? Chicago has common sense gun laws, and Houston does not.

In Houston, we have open carry, concealed carry, hip carry, boot carry, pocket carry, purse carry, butt-crack carry, palm carry, hat carry, crotch carry - uhhhh - vaginal carry? Basically, you can tote a gun any damned way you want to carry a gun.

In Chicago, possession of a gun is a capital offense, execution taking place as soon as an LEO views your weapon - especially if you're a young black male with a weapon.

With a population of 2.7 million, Chicago has a violent crime problem, with their "common sense" gun laws.

With a population of 26.96 million, the entire state of Texas can't kill off as many people as Chicago does.

Common sense. The solution seems pretty obvious. Chicago should pass "Constitutional Carry". The constitution guarantees an American citizen the right to keep and bear arms. No permit, no jumping through hoops, no begging the sheriff for permission, no deviant sex acts committed in the alley behind the court house. Constitutional carry - I'm a citizen, I get a gun if and when I want. Or, when I can afford it, anyway.

http://heyjackass.com/ another site demonstrating how violent Chicago is.

* The page updates periodically, so the totals may look quite different when you look at them.

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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Subsentient on Sunday June 05 2016, @03:46PM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Sunday June 05 2016, @03:46PM (#355528) Homepage Journal

    I am a believer in "if you make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns.".
    I completely believe these statistics and they're not that surprising to me.

    I'm not generally a conservative guy, with the exceptions being ethical ambiguity with abortion and a love for gun rights.
    I say "I don't care if you blow goats as long as the goat likes it", and I mean it. I could walk in on you blowing a goat
    and I'd just be concerned if the goat liked it or not.

    "Your rights end where another's begins. Not before, not after."

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday June 06 2016, @04:39AM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Monday June 06 2016, @04:39AM (#355733)

    New York seems to be a hot-spot. What are the gun laws like there?

    It has a population of 8.5 million though, so you would expect the number of incidents to be 2-3x those in Chicago, all other things being equal.

    In Canada it is mostly handguns that are restricted. The most common murder weapon is the knife.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday June 06 2016, @01:30PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Monday June 06 2016, @01:30PM (#355842) Journal

    Now compare your stats to a city of comparable size in Europe, Canada, Australia or Japan.

    I'm convinced the problem with gun crime in America isn't guns or criminals. It's Americans.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 06 2016, @02:12PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 06 2016, @02:12PM (#355885)

      a city of comparable size in Europe, Canada, Australia or Japan.

      That enters thought crime area where its double plus ungood badthink to observe the demographics of the criminals when you zoom down to neighborhood level.

      A city full of euros has low crime rates no matter where the dirt they're standing on is located. Ditto the Japanese or Australians. But if you want to compare to some neighborhoods in south america or africa, suddenly the stats are not so far out of line. There's more to ethnic neighborhoods than food, its also gun stats.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 12 2016, @08:14AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 12 2016, @08:14AM (#358569) Journal

      You could be right. In fact, you probably are right. But, maybe the "problem" isn't really a "problem". Europeans were once great warriors. For a short time, anyway. Today? Not so much. Today, Euors appear to be the "Elder race" which has lost it's virility and strength. Europe has suffered a (smallish) number of assaults on it's home land, and what has it done? Pretty much roll over, and ask for more.

      You're still allowing Muslim "refugees" to come into Europe, right?

      I like this response a hell of a lot better - http://www.thelocal.dk/20160602/sex-campaigns-lead-to-danish-baby-boom [thelocal.dk] Denmark doesn't intend to hand it's home over to "refugees". Come on, you lazy assed Euros - JUST DO IT!

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday June 07 2016, @09:40AM

    by anubi (2828) on Tuesday June 07 2016, @09:40AM (#356338) Journal

    The residents of Kennesaw [google.com] were seeing crime coming up from Atlanta. They did not want to rely on the city to protect them.

    So they did THIS. [rense.com].

    Yes, I have some pistol-packing relatives ( um, actually all of them are. ).

    Oh yes, we all consider "gun control" to mean "You hit what you're shootin' at".

    If one can't hit what he's shooting at, he obviously does not have much control of his gun.

    We were all brought up with that meme. Same meme we would use concerning any tool, especially ones that will cause a lot of grief if misused.

    We kids learned about guns before we even learned to steer the tractor.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday July 10 2016, @06:15PM

    by dry (223) on Sunday July 10 2016, @06:15PM (#372774) Journal

    The question is whether the gun control laws produce the violence or are a reaction to violence. Seems that Chicago has always been violent, or at least since prohibition as well as corrupt and quite possibly the violence would even be higher without gun control. Of course Chicago does not exist in a vacuum, so gun control doesn't help much.
    Living in a country where hand guns are heavily regulated, and with about 10 million more people then Texas, we have just over half the number of gun related murders. Which just goes to show that even Texas has too many gun deaths.