5 killed, 13 wounded in Chicago shootings, including 4 dead in rifle attack the headline at chicagotribune.com proclaims. Keep in mind that the Windy City recently saw its 500th firearms-related homicides for the 2017 calendar year. The vast majority of these deaths — and the 2,248 Chicagoans wounded by gunfire — were victims of handgun rounds. But the fact that ANY of these deaths or injuries involved a rifle has caught the media’s attention . . .

Some Chicago gangs turning to rifles for added firepower, police say another headline at the Trib reveals. That article starts as you’d expect: with anecdotal urgency, and a child’s perspective. Well, teenager . .

The first time 14-year-old Brisa Ramirez remembers hearing rifle fire was when a man was shot dead on a Sunday afternoon outside a Catholic church around the corner from her home in Back of the Yards.

She raises her voice to imitate the sharp, metallic bursts. Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta. It was a foreign sound even in this neighborhood accustomed to gunfire.

“It wasn’t like a normal (shooting). … It was like something more terrible,” Brisa says. “A noise that you can’t really explain.”

The paper proceeds to explain why rifles in the hands of murderous gang bangers are way worse than handguns.

Police have seized at least three rifles and have recovered rifle casings at dozens of crime scenes. There is also surveillance video showing rifles being used, according to investigators.

Police aren’t sure why the gangs have suddenly added rifles to their arsenal, except for the obvious speculation that they are deadlier.

A bullet from a semi-automatic rifle can travel as fast as 3,200 feet per second, twice the speed from a handgun. That means wounds are more disabling, experts say.

Rifle bullets can tear through cars and other obstacles, including standard-issue bulletproof vests worn by Chicago police. Special “rifle plates” that can stop those rounds are issued to SWAT teams, and some officers on regular duty also buy them.

Gangs have fired rifles outside elementary schools and churches, a day care center, in alleys and on residential streets, mostly during the afternoon and evening hours when streets are often crowded.

Does this sound like someone’s laying the groundwork for an “assault rifle” ban to you? While the political climate for any such legislation on the federal level is not conductive to AWB 2.0, the national scene could swing left quickly, as it’s done many times before.

Just remember: the antis never, ever give up. Just as Americans who cherish their natural, civil and Constitutional right to keep and bear arms will never give up their semi-automatic rifles. Oh wait . . .

52 COMMENTS

      • Next thing you’ll tell me is that Chicago needs universal background checks….oh wait, it already has that on the books.

        Good thing it’s there, because otherwise people might get shot in Chicago.

  1. This is a personal and personnel problem with the SChitcago REGION.

    There better not be one Fing peep from the “We’re F’d up, we need to fix you” crowd up there. They can go to hell, and I’ll help them pack.

  2. …build a wall around the affected area, dump pallet loads of firearms and ammunition and let the “problem” sort itself out…(sarc)

    • Little did we know that “Escape From New York” and “Escape From LA” were written by soothsayers. 🤣

      • In 1988, the crime rate in the United States rises four hundred percent. The once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country. A fifty-foot containment wall is erected along the New Jersey shoreline, across the Harlem River, and down along the Brooklyn shoreline. It completely surrounds Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways are mined. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped around the island. There are no guards inside the prison, only prisoners and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple: once you go in, you don’t come out.

  3. I’m content with walling Chicago off. If they want to use Chicago as an excuse to curtail my liberty I’ll evolve to a position which supports the thorough and deep carpet bombing of Chicago.

    • I suspect what they are seeing is a gang war between the black and mexican gangs. I have seen some reporting over the last week that Chicago population is becoming more Hispanic, and this seems to support the gang war idea. In the end we will see more innocents killed and wounded, and more misdemeanor murder.

      Does that justify infringing the RKBA? Only to Bloomberg’s minions.

      • Right – (Fing ILLEGAL AND STUPID) Sanctuary City on your part does not constitute an emergency on ours. When we want to let piss ant POS areas of our country dictate anything to us WE’LL GET OVER IT, but we’ll come end you first to prevent that sh_theaded feeling from coming back.

      • Since it is GANGS that are running about shooting (Oh my GAWD) RIFLES (!!!) in schools and churches and Gawd knows where leaving casings and bodies strewn all over the damn place, why don’t the make gangs illegal?! If the PoPo were doing their job they would round them up and deport them as likely many are illegal (sorry, undocumented) aliens (sorry, migrants) from south of the border. Jail the rest.

        Oh, wait it is a sanctuary city, never mind.

  4. There are over 8 million rifles that use magazines. Of those, a handful each year are used for crime….over 35 years these rifles were used to commit mass public shootings? 20 times, according to the Mother Jones mass public shooting data base….8,000,000 to 20….I wonder if the anti gunners can tell the difference between these two numbers?

  5. State law prohibits any further gun ordinances after the passage of CCW here in 2013. They can wring their hands all they like, the residents here are already barred from keeping assault weapons in city limits and no further law can be applied. This is journalistic posturing which the Tribune and Sun Times are quite famous for. Read the Chicago Tribune editorials for much eye roll…

    • No legislature can bind a future legislature. The future legislature can pass any bill it wants overturning any current law. If the Governor signs it, then that becomes the law, the old law be damned.

      Of course, legislatures are bound (in the short term) by their state constitutions and in the long term by the U.S. Constitution ans U.S. Supreme Court rulings, but that’s another story.

      If all that stands in the state government’s way today is a state law that the state government itself made in the past, then that is no permanent bulwark proscribing anything.

  6. It was like something more terrible,” Brisa says. “A noise that you can’t really explain.”

    Does anybody know if Gersh Kuntzmann was in Chicago circa 15 years ago?

    • As far as I can determine, no. All handguns.
      What the news media fails to report is this: Up to very recently, handguns were the preferred gun of choice because they are easily concealable. But with t he knowledge that the police were/are so lax in their duties, rifles are now being used because concealment is no longer a prime concern.
      While the local police claim to be stumped as to why rifles are now being used (some claim it’s because of the added firepower), it’s my opinion that they know it’s because the gangs no longer fear the police. Rifles are easier to aim, and provide more firepower, which, as everyone should know, brings power to the one wielding it. When concern about being caught goes away, the rifle is the next logical weapon to be brought to the table.
      Articles I read say the police and city leaders don’t know where the rifles are coming from, which leads me to believe they are very good at lying. We all know where they are coming from. They come from the same place bad guys get their guns: people who sell them to the bad guys. It’s certainly no secret. It’s also well known where these sellers get the guns: theft and other sources, legal and illegal. Make sales illegal across the board, and they will still be available, from old stock (stolen from legal owners) and from other sources (Philippines and other places that now import illegal guns), and, of course, LEOs who fail to properly secure their equipment.
      The current state of the firepower war in Chicago and other large leftist cities is a natural progression that will continue as long as Democrats push their agenda.

      It’s a sure as the fact that clicking on “Notify me of follow-up comments by email” won’t work.

  7. Ummmm…I can easily and legally buy an AR15 in Cook County. And legally shoot at Eagle gun range in Oak Forest-also in Cook County. OH and I can shoot reallive MACHINE GUNS there too. Chicago is Chiraq. They WILL screw the citizens legally or not. This last mass murder was Spanglish BS.

    • _and Chicago cops and politicians seem to ignore the key factor in south Chicago street life, the fact that drug supply and management of retail opportunity was monopolized by one Mexican cartel. Now, of course, there is another desperate to get in.

  8. It sure sounds like that article is laying the groundwork to propose “scary black military-style semi-automatic rifle” ban version 2.

    Here is my question of the day: how many injuries/deaths have to happen — as a result of structure fires that arsonists start with tampons — before we ban tampons? If arsonists used tampons to start 20 million structure fires that killed 2 million people this year, would that be sufficient to ban tampons?

    I designed that question in the hope of getting a gun-grabber to start thinking about ways to actually stop violent PEOPLE rather than trying to eliminate the availability of TOOLS that violent people may use since there are an infinite number of tools that violent people can use to harm their victims.

    I know, I know (heavy sigh). I can dream, can’t I? After all, that is what gun-grabbers do.

  9. it sounds like they never stopped laying the groundwork. upholding the highland park ban has left a patchwork of municipal restrictions.
    any atrocities committed with a rifle anywhere will stir the pot. some handguns are cheap and concealable on person, rifles are concealable in vehicle. drive by and highway shootings will begin to reveal more rifle usage.
    and it will spread out of canaryville.

  10. Chicago bangers mist be behind. Rappers have been repping the “gunship” (a car with a large rear seat and lowerable rear windows, complete with a thug with an AK) for a couple decades.

    “…when that window come down and that AK come out/
    You can squeeze your little handgun til you run out/
    You can run for your backup
    but those machine gun shells gonna tear your back up…”

    (Apologies to 50 Cent if that isn’t a verbatim quote)

    • Stricly speaking “backup” does not rhyme with “back up”…

      Nor does “club” ryhme with “club”…

  11. “A bullet from a semi-automatic rifle can travel as fast as 3,200 feet per second, twice the speed from a handgun. That means wounds are more disabling, experts say.”

    Credit where it’s due, at least somebody bothered to do some research there.

    • Twice the speed is a bit of a stretch. Unless we’re talking 357mag, or light for caliber 9mm. I am impressed that they did accurately portray AR ballistics, but that’s the only one that will do those speeds that bangers are interested in.

      • Well, “twice” the speed is actually less hysterical than you’d expect so I’m good with it. Also I did say “some” research 🙂

    • Of course, they try to make it sound as if being semi-automatic has something to do with the muzzle velocity. Because bullets from grandpa’s bolt-action .338 Win Mag dissipate harmlessly if they encounter human flesh.

  12. So one is lead to believe that to use their words,that a M4 or M16 was used in the attack in Chitcago

  13. “It wasn’t like a normal (shooting). …”

    In a town where a kid knows the sound of “a normal (shooting)”, perhaps the kind of gun isn’t the problem.

    • Exactly. The presence of rifles “on the streets” is only an incidental symptom. The real problem is much bigger, and would still exist in Chicago even if guns didn’t.

  14. The reason they are using rifles is that they know the cops aren’t going to lift a finger to stop them any more than when they brazenly use handguns with no repercussions.

  15. I guarantee you the “rifles” are going to be AK pistols—“Dracos with titty mags”, in urban parlance.

    There will be no move to ban or restrict them nationwide as long as Trump is president. He knows exactly how important the NRA/2A vote was to him.

    But if he loses in 2020,and Congress turns Demorat, rifle caliber pistols are going to be the first targets.

    Unless the Republican Congress gets busy removing SBRs from the NFA.

  16. Uh, I’m pretty sure the media’s gonna latch onto the Baton Rouge white guy wearing a Boy Scouts shirt who murdered two black guys on a spree while spouting “Nazi stuff” and bought a silencer for the assassinations (the details will likely change as the story unfolds, but that’s the gist at the moment)

  17. Coming to a CA 9th Circus court soon…

    Anti-gun Prosecutor: Your honor these pesky facts about handguns are getting in the way of my clients narrative of the super evil AR-15 pattern rifle. Prosecution motions for a mistrial cause we want to just win this case without working any harder than we already have!

    Gun rights Defense: Objection, your honor. When is the prosecution going to attempt a salient argument based on fact, truth, reality, and logic to argue for his clients gun control stance?

    Prosecution: Your honor I see no need to use logic in this case.

    Judge: Overruled

  18. Based on the numbers of people shot and the amount shot with rifles this is greatly overplayed at large. It’s something like 2%. I bet when they find these guys they’ll have a long ass list of stuff they’ve been in jail for and will double down with them being on probation, parole or bail.

  19. Assualt Ban Will never pass.again in America.This is a Muslim wish, ISIL-Obama think’s he is still running WA DC.
    This is set up with innocent victims period.So go ahead Ban them all then, RIA of Rockport, IL, and Springfield of
    Genesco will go out of business selling to the biggest market, the US Civilian market.

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