Three Mass Shooting Who Cares? When Chicago’s Body Count is at 282

Editors Note:  Big deal, a 19-year-old perpetrator kills three in California, followed by twenty-two killed in El Paso, TX and nine more in Dayton, OH. These numbers are just drops in the bucket compared to the number of people killed in the Chicago metro area. And since mainstream media do not report on that and do not seem to care about this continuing tragedy, why should we get worked up over another 34 dead? I guess it does not fit media’s anti-gun agenda? (Warning to SnowFlakes. This article title and ed’s note use sarcasm to make a point, do not mistakenly report that we somehow have no sympathy. When, in fact, we are doing more to highlight the truth.)

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that the Windy City so far this year, through the end of July, has logged 282 homicides, and that’s the good news!?

Actually, outside of the Chicago metropolitan area, it’s not making much news at all, overshadowed by high-profile incidents in California, El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH.

For July, the Chicago newspaper reported, “The 43 murders and 231 shootings reported in July alone were also the lowest for the month since 2016, and down from 64 murders and 264 shootings last year, police said.”

According to the popular website heyjackass.com, July saw 40 people “shot and killed” out of 45 total slayings. Even considering the slight disparity between the website’s numbers and those of the Sun-Times, it’s not exactly the sort of thing one cheers about, and the national media does not appear to be paying much attention.

There has been far more reporting over the past few days focusing on the mass shooting at the Gilroy, Calif., Garlic Festival, where three people died, and another 15 were wounded. The killer in California, identified as Santino William Legan, use a semiautomatic rifle legally purchased in Nevada, but subsequently showed the failure of California’s strict gun control laws by bringing it into the Golden State, where such rifles are banned. He brought it into a gun-free zone by cutting through a fence at Christmas Hill Park to avoid gate security and opened fire.

The cowardly shooter apparently shot and killed himself in less than 60 seconds after opening fire, before our good guys with guns could arrive.

Yet the tragic incident in California got national headlines, and the media tends to ignore the ongoing slaughter in Chicago.

The Sun-Times report noted that homicide had declined in the city 11 percent from the same period in 2018 when 321 slayings had been reported. Likewise, the number of shootings also fell 11 percent from last year at this time.

Over the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago, according to the newspaper, 68 people were shot, and five of them were killed.

While most people consider Chicago to be the nation’s murder capital, that dubious distinction might belong to Baltimore, which has been prominent in the news last week because of a twitter war being waged by President Donald Trump and local Congressman Elijah Cummings. The veteran Capitol Hill Democrat has defended his district after the president pointed to the squalor in some neighborhoods. Even a live news report the other day was highlighted by the sudden appearance of a large rat scampering along the wall of what once must have been a building.

The president said Cummings’ district is dangerous and that might apply to the city as a whole. So far this year, Baltimore—a city of less than 620,000—has racked up 196 murders so far in 2019, 38 of them in July, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Seattle, where the population is estimated at more than 755,000, has listed six (6) homicides so far this year, a remarkably low number considering the city is in Washington’s King County, where about 15 percent of the state’s active concealed pistol license holders reside. According to the Washington State Department of Licensing, as of Aug. 1 more than 627,000 Evergreen State residents are licensed to carry.

Perhaps the moral here is that all of those Evergreen State citizens are legally-armed, while people committing murder and mayhem in Chicago and Baltimore aren’t. That’s another bit of information the media consistently fails to report. If gun control proponents were right about too many guns in private hands, Seattle should be stacking up corpses like cordwood, so it must be that legally-armed private citizens aren’t nearly as big a problem as the gun prohibition lobby would have the public believe. At least, that’s the perspective of activists in the firearms community.

It is possible to get a concealed carry license in Illinois and carry in Chicago. It is difficult to get a carry permit in Maryland, and lawful concealed carry in Baltimore by armed private citizens is rare.

Returning to Chicago, according to heyjackass.com, the highest number of murder victims were killed with bullets to the head (85), and the second-highest number were shot in the chest (63). Far more people have been wounded in the back (128) than killed from behind (21) so far this year, while headshots are about twice as fatal as those that just wounded people (43).

So far this year, the website reports, five people have been killed in self-defense, and another seven have been wounded. Last year, there were four self-defense killings, and 14 people were wounded, and in 2017, 13 people were killed in self-defense while only eight were wounded.

Five months remain on the 2019 calendar, so there is plenty of time for Chicago to ramp up the mayhem, and some of it might be self-fulfilling. According to heyjackass.com, so far this year 30 people have accidentally shot themselves while taking selfies. Eighty people have been shot in the buttocks, according to the website’s “shot-in-the-Ass-O-Meter.”

There is one other category posted on the website, and it tells the number of homicides that have happened under mayoral administrations dating back to 1955.

Under Mayor Richard J. Daley, there were 10,910 murders during his tenure (1955-1976). Under his son, Richard M. Daley, a whopping 14,653 people were killed on his watch (1989-2011). Both were ardent anti-gunners. Under Rahm Emanuel, the city saw 4,535 slayings (2011-2019), followed by Harold Washington (1983-1987) at 3,295; Jane Byrne (1979-1983) 3,202; Michael Bilandic (1976-1979) 2,408, and Eugene Sawyer (1987-1989) with a paltry 978 killings.

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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