[Peace-discuss] Chicago police -- holding out until the lawsuits stop?

[Laurie Solomon]

But, if I understand the Court's majority opinion, municipalities and other
local governmental units as well as the states, can have all kinds of
restrictive licensing laws and other laws just short of actual banning of
guns which could, if stringently enforced, effectively control and limit gun
ownership as well as the sale of firearms or their importation into the
city, local governmental unit's jurisdiction, or the state.  But that is not
going to happen in most instances or places even if and when the local law
enforcement asks for it, which they have in some areas.  

 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Barbara
kessel
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 11:40 AM
To: Stuart Levy
Cc: peace-discuss at anti-war.net; discuss at lists.communitycourtwatch.org
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Chicago police -- holding out until the
lawsuits stop?

 

There is also the fairly recent Supreme Court ruling in relation to
Washington D.C. that cities cannot have their own gun ban laws, and when
that happened, the city of Chicago was mentioned as having gun lawys most
similar to Washington, D.C. The prediction by the mayor of Washington D.C.
was that murders would rise as more handguns rush into the market without
any regulations about purchase and possession - which had been thrown out by
the Supreme Court. It is unconstitutional, don't you know? Barbara K 

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 11:21:25AM -0500, John W. wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> At yesterday's AWARE meeting I mentioned hearing, on NPR station WBEZ in
> > Chicago,
> > a report that (a) the Chicago murder rate is up this year and (b) that
may
> > be
> > because (some?) Chicago police are unwilling to risk being sued/charged
for
> > misconduct as a few have been recently.  (Also, "juries in 2008 are
> > different,
> > they are much less inclined to just believe the police version of
events.")
> > Therefore, the suggestion is, police are taking it easy on law
enforcement,
> > declining to apprehend people that they would have pursued in the past.
>
>
> It seems to me to be a very tenuous correlation at best.  Police generally
> don't PREVENT murders.  They generally solve them, or try to solve them,
> after they've already occurred.
>
> About the only argument I can think of is an indirect one:  If police are
> taking fewer potential murderers off the streets on other pretexts (such
as
> gang members for selling drugs, etc.), then that could conceivably account
> for the (relatively slight) increase in the murder rate.

Yes, if you listen to the report that's the kind of mechanism they seem to
suggest.
In particular, they mention removing guns from the street.

No matter how you read this, it's ugly:

  - If (some) police are actually holding the city hostage (whether it's
having
       a measurable effect on murder rates or not), it's dereliction of
duty.

  - If they're just using an unrelated rise in murders to try to
       stop scrutiny of police misbehavior, it amounts to
       extortion on a grand scale by whoever is promoting this story.

  - Police who aren't involved in either of the above should be furious.

 

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