While individuals can have various opinions on the topic of gun control, “independent” or “neutral” journalists should (theoretically) keep an open mind.
Over the years I have pilloried the Chicago Tribune not for being pro-gun control but for NOT EVEN MENTIONING THE LACK OF GUN RIGHTS WHEN DISCUSSING MURDERS. For example, if a woman is gunned down by an ex spouse who violates a protection order, it is never discussed that she doesn’t even have the right to defend herself which may have contributed to her death. Given that Chicago leads the nation in murders on a total basis (even though we are far behind NYC and Los Angeles in population), this is not an irrelevant criterion.
In a recent article by John Kass, one of their columnists, discussing a police officer who was killed in the line of duty
Just two weeks before young Chicago Police Officer Alex Valadez was shot down on the edge of a vacant South Side lot, his alleged killer, Shawn Gaston, was in court, accused of another probation violation on a felony gun charge.
Later, in the same article, which you can see here
“They just don’t take gun cases seriously,” said a ranking officer in line with me at Valadez’s wake, on the day before he was to be buried. “You’d think they’d take them seriously, but they don’t.”
Our politicians make lots of noise when it comes to guns and violence. They make speeches and stand in front of the cameras and shake their fingers in anger.
But the woman who was raped in the suburbs and now has a gun in the drawer isn’t the problem. The old guy in the city — feeling he must violate the city’s handgun ban because he’s not a politician with bodyguards but an old man alone — is not the problem.
The problem is this: thugs with guns. And if they violate probation on gun charges, they should be incarcerated.
Wow. The Chicago Tribune finally admits that there is another perspective on gun control. Maybe gun control isn’t the answer, but enforcing laws on existing felons rather than law-abiding citizens is a start. This is a first, and needs to be applauded.
Cross posted at LITGM
Please dont confuse John Kass with the Tribune editorial board or the rest of the the staff which is decidedly anti-gun.
Cynically, one might say that the refusal to enforce existing gun laws is part of a strategy to create a support even more strict laws. By refusing to enforce existing laws, they don’t stop crimes with guns and they point to the continuing crime as indicating even stronger laws, which they won’t enforce. This process will continue until they have a total ban, which they will enforce strongly.
Disarmament advocates claim to only wish to keep guns out of the hands of criminals but their behavior suggest otherwise. It’s like someone claiming that they just want to ban child pornography but they start with banning playboy. You would rightly suspect their true goal was to ban all pornography.
I know that Mr. Kass is out there compared to the rest of Tribune but it definitely is a start. I just get angry that they don’t even MENTION this critical fact in their stories, when Indiana, which allows concealed carry (and doesn’t have a wild west shootout) is pretty much part of the metro area.
They have a long way to go to ban guns… the tide is totally against them and every state except for Wisconsin and Illinois has some sort of concealed carry law even if it isn’t widely available.
But I agree 100% that this is their intent.
As long as Cook county controls the state legislature then there will never be a conceal carry law in Illnois.