Dwyane Wade: Chicago Gun Laws Too ‘Weak,’ Police ‘Can Do a Lot Better’

During a September 2 interview with ABC News, Chicago Bulls star Dwyane Wade commented on the shooting death of his cousin by describing Chicago gun laws as too “weak” and suggesting the police “can do a lot better.”

Wade said his children are scared of police now the same way he was scared of police when he was growing up.

Wade’s cousin—32-year-old Nykea Aldridge—was shot and killed on August 26 while pushing a stoller in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood. Breitbart News reported that Aldridge was one of 10 killed that weekend and that the two men charged in the murder were on parole for prior criminal activity. ABC News reported a total of 472 individuals were shot and wounded in Chicago during the month of August alone, with 90 fatalities.

According to the New York Daily News, Wade blamed “weak” gun laws, saying, “There’s other cities that have way tougher gun laws. We have weak gun laws.”

Chicago boasts a “violence tax”—which raises the price on bullets and firearms sold at retail—and the city enforces a strict limitations on the number of gun stores allowed and the locations of those stores, as well as a state-imposed waiting period on gun purchases, among other things. Until 2010, the city led the nation with all-out draconian gun bans that did nothing to prevent violence. For example, the Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago enacted “a ban on handgun ownership in 1982.” And ABC News shows it was not unprecedented for Chicago to top 500 murders annually while the ban was in place. There were “513” murders in 2008, “600” in 2003, and “940” in 1992. BET reported “over 500” murders for the city of Chicago in 2015.

The point: Far from having “weak” gun laws, Chicago has been an experiment in extreme gun control for decades. But such controls have only correlated with death and more death.

Still, Wade wants more gun laws. And he wants the police “to do a lot better,” although he does admit the police will need help in order to do so.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.