Police say the victim parked his scooter around 8:30 p.m. Saturday on the north side of Chicago Avenue across from [Northwestern University’s] Wieboldt Hall when up to 20 males approached him. One of them threw a baseball at the victim’s face and knocked him to the ground, according to an alert from the university. Several others from the group punched and hit him several times. The victim tried to protect himself and fought back. The group eventually fled eastbound toward the lake.
This is Chicago. Let’s gets gun rights in the city before we talk about guns on the Chicago campus of Northwestern Univerisity.
up to 20 males approached him.
If not having a gun saves just one scumbag’s life…
But Daaaave! If he had been armed someone would have gotten killed! Maybe more than one. If he had just given them his wallet and IPhone everything would have been fine. It is his own fault. He was flaunting his wealth in front of those poor souls. If he had just given everything he had above the poverty level to the government then he wouldn’t have had anything to steal and they would have known he was one of them. Perhaps they would have asked him to join their club and he could have helped them hunt down the rich…
Your sarcasm notwithstanding, you got one detail wrong. The victims in these “flash mob” attacks never get an opportunity to just give up their wallets and smartphones/iPads. They’re beat down without warning, and then stripped of valuables. You probably know that, but I didn’t want anyone reading your response to think that just willingly handing over valuables to avoid violence was an option for these victims.
Live in the area. This has been an ongoing problem for a couple years. Although this year has been increasingly disturbing in both scale and frequency. The beach being closed over memorial day was due to roaming mobs of gang members creating chaos and the city didn’t want to take their chances with sun down and at least 1000 gang members vs. the 4 or so officers that were there. Seems since Daley left the media has gone from silence to terrorizing problems on Michigan Ave.
This section of NWU is about 3 blocks east of water tower place, the heart of Chicago tourism. You really wouldn’t be able to tell is was a campus aside some a few signs. There were 3 other victims that this mob attacked. 1 guy was smoking a cigar in the park adjacent to this victim. And the 2 others on the lake path including a Japaneese tourist. The street that the attack happened on leads right to the lake. Too much to get into hear, but second city cop is covering this extensively along with all the comments in these news stories.
Read the victims account and he said he zeroed in on one guy to fight back.
RF – any chance we can get your thoughts on what to do when outnumbered 10:1 w/o a weapon?
“RF – any chance we can get your thoughts on what to do when outnumbered 10:1 w/o a weapon?”
Flee?
10 people on 1 have (in my admittedly very limited experience) tendency to circle their victim, making “flee” a difficult option at best.
The official line is the closure was due to “concerns” of heat related public health/safety issues a la the 1995 heat wave that killed hundreds.
Funny thing is… it’s hotter now than it was over the weekend.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/5694076-452/did-street-gang-activity-really-close-north-ave.-beach
Don’tcha’ love the Windy City spin. Perhaps they were worried about the non-law-abiding citizenry and their “heat”. Rumor on the street is, the gangbangers were hiding weapons in bushes, trash receptacles, etc. in and around the area. They could deploy to the area via public transportation and would have the ability to arm themselves fairly quickly should the need arise.
An “urban” prepositioning program, if you will.
American universities have become the last bastion of Anti-Americanism in the U.S. For that reason alone, I am completely against campus carry — as long as it’s only the professors and administrators who get capped by armed psychotics with an axe to grind. As for the students, most of them would be much better served by transferring to a nice, safe and less expensive trade school where they can actually learn something worthwhile.
It sounds like that would be the answer for that area. If enrollment suffers, the university cries to the gov’t and puts pressure on them, the powers that be push the commissioner to make it a point to clear the area by sheer numbers of police presence (moving the problem off to another area). That and a few mop handles…
I have taught for the last 25 years at universities, and I can’t think of any “Anti-Americanism” on the faculty, staff, or administration. There are plenty of people who do not like where America is headed (both liberals and conservatives seem upset), but all those who complain seem to truly care about the country.
While I have nothing but positive things to say about trade schools (publicly supported, not the for-profit schools which do little but create debt for their students), I am not sure that most people would be better off there. We will all have jobs (I hope), but the job of a university is to prepare students for more than just a trade or something “worthwhile.”
Anti-Americanism can mean different things to different people I suppose. I’d like to be able to say that the president and his party are both anti-American because they view the constitution as nothing more than an antiquated obstacle to what they want to do. But since they were duly elected by Americans, and since there’s a tradition almost as old as the republic itself of contempt of the constitution, it’s probably a little late to draw the line there. And it’s not like the other party is squeaky-clean on this issue either.
What about the professors around the country who spoke out shortly after 9/11/01 and said in various ways that we had it coming? What about the colleges and universities that ban ROTC from their campuses? What about the University of Deleware’s Residence Life ideological indoctrination program? What about universities that have banned display of the American flag?
it seems that “anti-Americanism” is code for “anti-intellectualism” in the Obama era. There can be both, and trade schools DO need to be elevated in their importance to young people, my soon to be father in law did not go to college, and yet is brilliant in a way that my phd holding folks could not.
I am not sure what the difference is between anti-intellectualism in the Obama era compared to the Bush era, or the Nixon era, for that matter.
I am really glad that your father-in-law is brilliant, but do you think that this is a result of his education at, I am guessing, a trade school, or is it because he was born brilliant?
Colleges and universities are certainly not for everyone; accordingly, their roles are not the same as trade schools. If one wants to learn a trade, then it seems that there is an obvious choice. If one wants to become liberally educated, then there is another choice. A college will not make a dope a genius, but it might make him/her a well-read, curious, critically-thinking dope.
I guess I participate in an indoctrination program, too: it is supposed to introduce/imbue the students into the culture of the university–critical thinking, liberal education (not in the political sense http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/10/liberal-arts-education-curriculum-degree-opinions-colleges-geary-schneider.html ), analytical skills, writing and oratory proficiency, and so on. Some good ideas turn into horrible monsters as they are added to by more and more people.
ROTC programs have been excluded by some schools because of the DADT worries: any school that accepts federal monies has to worry that they comply with federal anti-discrimination laws. I do not think this is an anti-American issue. For example, I have read that many schools that have excluded ROTC are making plans to bring that program on their campuses with the ending of DADT.
Please note that in almost all examples of the flag “banning” these were not campus-wide, and were usually reversed. The schools might well have over-reacted to perceived concerns about sensitivities for their international students, but this seems far different than being anti-American. I like the way my university handles this; in our student union, we have the national flag of every nation represented by our student body flying. Respect from everyone: logical, simple, and easy to defend.
Hey, what is the big deal? Daley has his security detail, all is well…..
I am a student on campus. It’s very dark and plenty of places to hide to rob folks. Campus police patrols all the time, but stuff like this all the time. The county says you can’t carry mace or a gun, but how do you protect yourself?
Go to another school that cares. 20 to 1 odds are no odds.
This is what happens when you chose to live in a state that won’t let you have a gun. Now you can move to a state that will respect your right to have a gun, or you can stay there and get robbed and beaten like a good lil sheep.
It reminds me of that movie The Exterminator, and his revenge on a street gang. And the mafia. And a pedophile Senator.
Now I’m not sure how many of y’all have kids in college but as a father of four (yes, four) daughters, two of which are in college here in Texas, I can tell you that campus carry is a BIG DEAL. I know this little fact may have been missed by the MSM but not long ago a Saudi national living not more than 3 blocks from where my daughter lives during the school year was arrested in Lubbock, Texas on terrorism charges. It burns my britches that I can’t even drive onto campus with my legally owned firearm in my car, let alone carry it concealed under by CHL.
When I take my daughter to Texas Tech each year, I’m completely defenseless while moving her stuff into the dorms. I’m also highly concerned that even the off-duty LEOs that work on campus part-time are not allowed to carry their firearms. So we have a situation where no adult is allowed to carry on campus under any circumstances, even after a foreign terrorist is arrested. What the blazes does it take to wake these fool academics up?
Campus carry was never intended to allow college kids to “carry firearms on campus”. It is intended to allow CHL holders and LEOs to protect themselves, their loved ones and the general public against the very real threat of violence on our college campuses. The same threats we all face every single day no matter where we live, work or play. Restricting that right means that only the nut cases, violent predators and terrorists will have firearms when they come after our children. We won’t. The faculty and staff won’t and the off-duty LEOs won’t. Only the bad guys!
What the devil are we thinking?
It’s pretty amazing that even states like Utah and New Hampshire have very convoluted and retarded carry laws, and Texas has a lot of work to do before it’s anywhere near those states. Then again, if Texas somehow manages to drive away all the liberals and neoconservatives from its major cities, it’s got a great chance of becoming the freest place in the world.
It’s not any particular state, either — even states that seemingly have very few regulations DO have too many of them, and politicians will always be politicians. Campus carry’s going to be a thorny issue for a very long time.
Is there anything functionally different about a big campus which would make it safer than any urban area? Not particularly.
-D