White House press secretary Josh Earnest conceded Monday that Chicago is a city with a high rate of gun crimes and murder despite having very strict gun control laws. But he said that’s even more of an argument for stricter national laws.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to head to Chicago Tuesday to speak to the International Association of the Chiefs of Police.
When asked about the event and what the president will discuss, Earnest responded, “It would be difficult for the president to go and address the International Association of the Chiefs of Police in a city like Chicago that has been dealing with a plague of gun violence of late and not talk about steps we can take to reduce gun violence. I do think you can expect the president to touch on this.”
Obama is speaking to the police chiefs primarily about criminal justice reform, Earnest added.
When a reporter mentioned that Chicago already has strict gun control laws, Earnest agreed, “It does.”
Critics of the administration have pointed to Chicago and other localities with strong gun control laws to demonstrate gun control laws don’t work.
Earnest took the opposite view:
The city of Chicago is a good illustration of why allowing local jurisdictions to put in place these gun safety laws doesn’t work because it’s just too easy for those with bad intentions to just cross the city line or just cross the county line and make a handgun purchase that they are prevented from making in some other jurisdictions. Often somebody who is seeking to evade gun laws like that is somebody who shouldn’t have a gun in the first place. This is somebody with a criminal record, somebody who may be the subject of a restraining order or maybe even somebody with a mental problem. Chicago ends up being a pretty good illustration for why those kinds of national laws are important to the safety of communities all across the country.
Earnest did not have an update as to where things stood regarding possible executive actions on guns, which administration officials have said are pending.
I know a little about chitcago…..lived there most of my life….Chitcagp police dept keep probably the best gun violence statistics….and as of when I still lived there the stats showed MOST of the gun violence was between gang bangers, ex cons with gun violence background etc deaths due to gun violence were those same groups sooooo…I ask what is wrong with that? They are taking each other out…isn’t that a good thing?
In that case, why don’t the Chicago cops raid the known gang members?
They won’t because the gangs are not afraid to shoot back.
All cops are to be able to go home at night.
This article has the names all wrong. Its “Mid-Level Communist Banking Functionary Barry Seotoro” and the “International Communist Murderers Gang of the Thieving Pigs”
There’s just no accuracy in reporting these days.
“… a high rate of gun crimes and murder despite having very strict gun control laws. But he said that’s even more of an argument for stricter national laws.”
Translation: “You people aren’t killing each other fast enough, so we need stricter gun laws to facilitate that process.”
If easy access to guns outside of Chicago is responsible for the violence within Chicago, then why are the murder rates outside of Chicago lower than they are inside of Chicago?
On a larger scale, we have the US and Mexico. Mexico has very strict gun control, but its murder rate is something like three times as high as the US murder rate. Some have blamed Mexico’s high murder rate on guns that are smuggled in from the US. But if the availability of guns is the problem, then we’d expect the murder rate to be higher in the US — the source of the guns — than in Mexico, the destination of a small percentage of smuggled guns.
Obviously guns aren’t the problem. The violence is caused by a toxic combination of drug prohibition, low economic opportunity, and high concentrations of blacks. (By no means are all blacks senselessly violent people, but the percentage of those who are is unmistakably greater than is the case with other races.)
But this is all moot. The bottom line is that the Second Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights, are not subject to compromise.
I’m having a hard time following the logic. Gun control in Chicago resulted in the “Windy City” becoming the murder capital in the U.S. I just don’t get it. I don’t think Josh is being Earnest with us. Tell me that’s not a “made up” name.
Barry has definitely been drinking the Kool-Aid
It actually makes perfect sense, from their point of view. Remember, they are masters at taking a negative and turning it into a positive. So, if Chi town has one of the highest murder rates in the country – and they have the strictest gun laws in the country – and things are working, well, it’s clearly obvious the answer is more money thrown at the problem and more ‘common sense’ gun laws. After all, that’s their answer to every failing idea and it always works,,,,, right up to the point where it doesn’t work (about the first day into the ‘new’ plan)
So, if they’ve had this problem for a long time, the answer MUST be more gun laws. It’s written in their hand book; therefore it must be right and it is to be followed without question.