The Discerning Texan

If there is a better illustration of the insanity of very strict anti-carry/anti-gun laws than what is going on in Chicago, I would like to see it. This is a textbook example of the adage: if you disallow citizens the right to guns, only the criminals will have guns. Welcome to it.

It what can only be construed as a return back to the days of Al Capone, instead of allowing its own law abiding citizens to arm and defend themselves against the escalating violence, Mayor Richard Daley (a "Chicago Way" Democrat who had done his infamous father's tradition proud...) is wanting to give his understaffed and untrained police force automatic weapons. Not that I am against letting the police have whatever they need to get the job done; but I am suggesting that Chicago's finest might have a lot simpler time of it were they to follow the highly successful model of other cities and states which have instituted carry laws: in virtually every single case this has led to a reduction in gun crime (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

Fifty-four shootings in two weekends. Shot-up bodies recovered in groups of three and five. Is this Ramadi? Basra? No.

Welcome to Chicago.

After a recent outbreak of gun-related violence, Mayor Richard Daley is now pushed into supporting a plan by new Police Superintendent Jody Weis to arm 13,000 Chicago police officers with assault rifles. Depending on how many weapons are eventually deployed, this may develop into the largest militarization of police patrol officers in United States history. If the department arms 10,000 of their officers with M4s, the police will have 9,900 more assault rifles in Chicago than the U.S. Marines presently have in Fallujah, Iraq. ....

.... Mayor Daley and new police superintendent Jody Weis are planning on spending millions of dollars to start their militarization of the Chicago PD, and they’ll encounter recurring costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for maintenance and training as part of their plan to turn Chicago into Gaza on the Calumet.

At this point, we don’t know precisely how many M4 systems Weis is suggesting the CPD needs. If Weis is suggesting that every patrol officer be armed only while on patrol and the rifles will be transferred from one shift of officers to another, the CPD could conceivably get away with purchasing perhaps as few as 2,000 M4 optics-equipped carbines at a minimum outlay near $2 million. If Weis instead envisions issuing M4s one per officer, as departments typically do with handguns, then we’re looking at in excess of 10,000 M4 rifles at roughly $9 million, assuming that at least 3,000 non-patrol officers will not be issued the carbines. The figures assume a per-rifle-plus-optics unit cost of about $900. If the CPD opts for more expensive carbines or options, individual unit prices can easily exceed $1,500 per weapon. The initial outlay would range between $3 and $15 million.

These are just estimates of the physical costs of initiating the militarization of the Chicago PD, and it will be very interesting to see how Superintendent Weis and Mayor Daley intend to pay for the recurring training and maintenance costs of continuing such a program, which could take up hundreds of thousands of dollars in the police budget each year. ...

Read the whole thing.

Maybe Mayor Daley and other knee-jerk Democrats could benefit from actual facts and real statistics, courtesy of John Lott of the Hoover Institution.