Chicago’s public school officials have been busing students to Springfield to act as “grief” machines to advocate passage of stronger gun control measures by the Illinois legislature. Using children as props to score political points is shameless, not to mention pointless, as even some of the students themselves recognize.
Chicago has some of the strongest gun ban measures on the books in any city in the United States, yet guns are still on the streets in the hands of gang members and the teenage death toll mounts. This is not unusual–gun violence is on the rise in cities across the country where stringent gun control laws are in place.
Many of the students used by their elders recognized that street violence among teens has complex causes not addressed by gun control laws. Gang members “will always find a way” to get guns, one said.
Societal problems are to blame, many said.
But eroding the constitutional right to bear arms is much easier than tackling the failed War on Drugs, the narco-economy, and other failed programs which are the cultural cause of much of the shooting and gang violence in Chicago and other urban areas.
Gun-control advocates promised that stricter controls would help solve the problem of gun deaths. The only thing the controls have done is disarm law-abiding citizens.
Maureen Martin ( [email protected]) an attorney, is senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute.
Maureen Martin, a former legal fellow at The Heartland Institute, passed away on February 5, 2013.
