Gun-Controlled Chicago Ends 2016 with Nearly 800 Homicides for the Year

A woman talks with members of the Chicago Police Department at the scene where at least si
Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images
AWR Hawkins

Gun-controlled Chicago ended 2016 with nearly 800 homicides throughout the year.

The Chicago Tribune reports that there were a total of 779 homicides between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2016. That is an increase of 287 homicides over 2015 totals.

There were 4,385 shootings — fatal and non-fatal combined — in gun-controlled Chicago during 2016. That is an increase of nearly 1,500 shootings over the 2,900 Time magazine reported for 2015.

2016 was marred by shooting after shooting in Chicago. In fact, by early September, the egregious violence in the city was so high that ABC News reported “nearly 12” people had been shot every day in the city from January 1 to the end of August.

Chicago has been a testing ground for gun control for decades. The city put a ban on handgun ownership in place in 1982 and the Tribune reported that the next 10 years witnessed a “41 percent” jump in murders, “compared with an 18 percent rise in the entire United States.” And why shouldn’t such a ban lead to an increase in murder? After all, when bans are enacted, only the criminals remain armed.

The ban was overturned in 2010 via the Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v Chicago, but city leaders have worked diligently to preserve the vestiges of the ban at every turn in the road. Municipal and county limits on the number of gun stores allowed in Chicago, together with rules on the locations of those stores and a ridiculous amount of regulation on acquiring and carrying guns for self-defense, have coalesced to guarantee that criminals maintain an advantage similar to what they enjoyed when the ban was in place.

The result of Chicago gun control is self-evident — bloody and repulsive, but self-evident none the less.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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