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Three children—ages 5, 7 and 11—were among the 64 shooting victims in Chicago over Independence Day weekend. That’s a handful fewer than the 69 people shot there over Memorial Day weekend but it is well above the 55 people shot over Fourth of July weekend in 2015.
Through June, there had already been 315 homicides in Chicago this year, which is a 49% increase over the first half of last year. Though violent crime isn’t at these levels in most other places, it has worsened in recent years. Homicides in the nation’s largest cities were up 9% through March of this year. They increased by 17% between 2014 and 2015.
The political left’s response to gun violence is typically more gun control, even though the places with the biggest problems tend to sport harsher firearms restrictions, and criminals by definition ignore laws. Another fundamental problem with the left’s approach to gun violence is that legislation proposed by Democrats tends to target weapons that aren’t used in most shootings. Only occasionally do liberals admit this, which is why it’s news when it happens.
Democrats have used the terror attacks in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino, Calif., along with the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., to argue for measures like enhanced background checks and bans on so-called assault rifles.
“Background checks, though important, won’t reduce black-market gun sales, the source of the majority of illegal firearms in Oakland, New York and Chicago,” wrote Mr. Cobb, adding that “mass shootings constitute just two per cent of gun homicides in the United States, and assault weapons are not the weapons most commonly used by Americans to kill one another.”
The author went on to cite Justice Department data showing that “in 2014 rifles were used in only three per cent of all homicides committed with firearms in the United States. The larger problem, quite simply, is the superabundance of handguns.”
Actually, it isn’t that simple. Linking higher rates of gun ownership to higher rates of gun violence is quite problematic. According to the Pew Research Center, 51% of rural residents own a firearm, versus only a quarter of city dwellers, but urban areas have much more gun violence. Similarly, only 19% of blacks and 20% of Hispanics report owning guns, versus 41% of whites, yet gun violence among blacks and Hispanics is much more common.
Gun Control Won?t Fix Chicago - WSJ
Through June, there had already been 315 homicides in Chicago this year, which is a 49% increase over the first half of last year. Though violent crime isn’t at these levels in most other places, it has worsened in recent years. Homicides in the nation’s largest cities were up 9% through March of this year. They increased by 17% between 2014 and 2015.
The political left’s response to gun violence is typically more gun control, even though the places with the biggest problems tend to sport harsher firearms restrictions, and criminals by definition ignore laws. Another fundamental problem with the left’s approach to gun violence is that legislation proposed by Democrats tends to target weapons that aren’t used in most shootings. Only occasionally do liberals admit this, which is why it’s news when it happens.
Democrats have used the terror attacks in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino, Calif., along with the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., to argue for measures like enhanced background checks and bans on so-called assault rifles.
“Background checks, though important, won’t reduce black-market gun sales, the source of the majority of illegal firearms in Oakland, New York and Chicago,” wrote Mr. Cobb, adding that “mass shootings constitute just two per cent of gun homicides in the United States, and assault weapons are not the weapons most commonly used by Americans to kill one another.”
The author went on to cite Justice Department data showing that “in 2014 rifles were used in only three per cent of all homicides committed with firearms in the United States. The larger problem, quite simply, is the superabundance of handguns.”
Actually, it isn’t that simple. Linking higher rates of gun ownership to higher rates of gun violence is quite problematic. According to the Pew Research Center, 51% of rural residents own a firearm, versus only a quarter of city dwellers, but urban areas have much more gun violence. Similarly, only 19% of blacks and 20% of Hispanics report owning guns, versus 41% of whites, yet gun violence among blacks and Hispanics is much more common.
Gun Control Won?t Fix Chicago - WSJ