Apparently the chief law enforcement officer for Chicago wanted to fan the flames of this gun control advocacy thing that’s all the rage at the moment. So he decided to display the guns he claimed had been seized already in the opening days of 2013. Included were the usual suspects: an assortment of AK and AR variants and other scary looking weapons. It creates the idea that, if such a large number of “assault weapons” were confiscated in such a short period, the number of illegal guns must be HUGE! Here’s the issue, though — the guns he showed off weren’t seized in 2013. In other words, Garry McCarthy lied. Here’s the story . . .

From the Chicago Tribune:

Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy held a news conference Monday where his department “put on display several of the firearms seized … during the first two weeks of 2013,” according to a police news release.

But that wasn’t exactly the case.

A police spokeswoman said McCarthy had hoped to display 25 weapons from among the more than 300 seized since Jan. 1 — but in fact the ones shown were from last year. Some dated from last summer, according to inventory tags on the weapons.

Reporters attending the news conference at the Gresham Police District station, 7808 S Halsted St., noticed the inventory tags, and McCarthy was asked about them. He said the guns weren’t the actual ones seized in 2013, but were “representative” of them.

Raise your hand if you buy that these guns are “representative” of the guns found.

The party line was that the guns which were actually seized in 2013 hadn’t cleared the inventory yet, and so couldn’t be displayed. And for those of you who believe that line, I have a bridge to sell you . . .

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34 COMMENTS

  1. I noticed that the scary black rifle that they are showing off in this picture is a .22, ah stupidity, thy name is gun grabber.

  2. That 1 on the right center looks like a tommy gun. It’s probably been in an evidence locker since Al Capone’s day.

      • The synthetic stock would indicate that it’s definitely not a WWII gun, nor an Al Capone era gun. It’s most likely a semi-auto version of the tommy gun, which are still made by the original maker, Auto-Ordnance. There are other companies that make them, though.

  3. I clicked through to the Tribune link, and noticed in the “Mugshots” section on the right that there’s an item that says, “Stockpile of Ammo”. I clicked through some of the shots and saw some people charged with “Possession of Ammunition without an FOID card.” You have to have an FOID card to even own ammo in Chicago?

    • Not just Chicago, any Illinois resident must have a FOID card to purchase or possess firearms or ammunition. This even includes blackpowder firearms!

      I clicked through the same links and found the ‘ammo stockpile’ story here:

      http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-police-stockpile-of-ammo-found-in-south-shore-home-20130109,0,5545446.story

      Apparently, ‘nearly 400 rounds’ of ammunition is considered a stockpile in Chicago. Sounds like a trip to the range to me.

      • Wow. Quote from that article:

        “According to the state statute under which Johnson was charged, the weapon is considered a “machine gun,” which is defined as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manually reloading…”

        Can be readily restored to shoot? Count Illinois as a state I’ll never live in.

        • So semi-autos are “machine guns” now under the law (at least in IL)? It doesn’t mention multiple shots per trigger pull, only that you can fire multiple rounds without manually reloading. WTF is going on. Oh, that’s right – decades of public edumakashun where words and numbers mean whatever the hell you want them to mean if it means you get to force people to do what you say.

    • My understanding is, “yes”. So glad to be in TX. I feel for my NY, IL, CA, so forth and so on brothers and sisters.

        • I’m not saying who is worse or not as bad – I get that CA isn’t as nutter as IL. I’m just spoiled by having pretty much none of that stuff to deal with. Yet.

    • Well, possibly some government officials might lie, but certainly a Chicago police officer would never do anything dishonest, sleazy or corrupt…

  5. TTAG, please do a FOIA request for the list of everything seized over the past 5 years and do a breakdown of what they’ve received each year…

  7. Gosh, I haven’t seen the bans yet. Like Eminem says, lota people movin their lips but nothin comes out. I’m sure one of these days we will get a nice ban that we can sink our teeth into, one can only hope, sigh, Randy

    • I, for one, will not be a happy camper if a ban we can sink our teeth into appears… even if sinking our teeth into means tearing it down and out of law (legally).

  9. Would that there was a way to snap our fingers and know exactly what they’ve taken in over the last 14 days. It’d be interesting to compare to what they displayed before so much time goes by that it no longer matters.

  10. Hmm. Not nearly enough SKSes in that picture for me to believe it’s authentic.

    However, if Chicago PD had half a brain, they’d throw that shit on GunBroker and cover their operating costs for a couple months!

  11. Next, you’ll find him saying that no one was killed in Chicago last year, and that he can prove this because everyone whom you claim was killed, actually voted in the elections.

    But then, this is Obama-Emanuel-Daley land. What did you expect a public official over here to do? Speak the truth?

  13. The only person who likes this tool in Chicago is the mayor. Just like Jody Weiss, he will be gone soon. All three of them are the worst things to happen in Chicago. All liars! I hate living here.

  14. According to Second City Cop, the official “explanation” is BS as well:

    “…weren’t inventoried in time”? That’s a violation of General Order seeing as how all property seized must be inventoried by the end of the officer’s tour of duty. You think that coppers are just allowed to leave guns lying around district stations until they get around to inventorying them?

  15. That idiot shot out streetlights in a drunken tirade in new york one day, and recently blamed ‘pilgrims’ for the chicago black violence problem…. Go figure

  17. I remembered this line I heard years ago, but I can’t recall its origin.

    “If it weren’t for lying, I’d have no tale to tell.”

    Is this the kind of moral and ethical behavior we expect in our LEO’s?
    Where an expedient lie, carries the same weight as an objective truth?
    And we wonder where people develop their inherent distrust of police?

  19. Even if they were seized in 2013, how many weren’t really involved in a crime, other than the crime of “looking scary”?

  20. So the head of the Chicago PD is not only a THUG but a Corrupt lieing THUG, Law Breaker, IRGO, and a Drunkard? Gee, I wonder why his boss has not fired him?

    • Isn’t his boss that famous star of the white horse press room, Rahm-a-lam-a-ding-dong Emanual? Another one of the O’Bomba gang.

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