courtesy pixabay.com

We suppose that any time a couple of notoriously anti-gun organizations spend their cash on utterly useless, blindingly obvious “research,” that means fewer dollars down the road to push anti-gun ballot initiatives, lobby squishy elected officials and fund the campaigns of hoplophobic candidates. Which is why we’re just fine with a recent study being pumped by Michael Bloomberg’s The Trace that was undertaken to find out why Chicago’s “at-risk” youths who live in Murder City’s most dangerous neighborhoods carry guns.

The study, titled β€œWe Carry Guns to Stay Safe,” is based on a survey of 345 men and women between the ages of 18 and 26 who live in high-violence neighborhoods on the South and West Sides of the city. Researchers working for the Urban Institute and the Joyce Foundation found that about a third of all respondents, and half of all men surveyed, had carried guns at some point in their lives.Β (The Joyce Foundation provides funding to The Trace.) They almost always did so unlawfully and were driven by the same self-defense concernsΒ fueling legal firearm ownershipΒ around the country.

Bet you can’t guess what the people they surveyed said.

Of the 97 men who told the researchers they had carried a gun, 93 percent said they did so to protect themselves, and 84 percent said they did so to protect friends and family members. Their sense of fear was rooted in their experiences living in crime-afflicted neighborhoods: More than a third of the same group of respondents said they had either been shot or shot at during the past year. Eighty-five percent knew someone else who had been shot or targeted.

Let’s make sure we understand this. If what The Trace is telling us is accurate, people who carry guns and also live in two of America’s most dangerous, crime-riddled neighborhoods, pack heat to protect themselves and their families? What a novel concept! We see a Nobel in someone’s future.

As it turns out, many of those surveyed don’t bother with FOID cards, background checks or concealed carry permits.

Though few respondents who carried guns said they did so regularly, less than one in five thought the risk of getting caught by police with an illegal weapon was high, and even fewer β€” one in 10 β€” believed they would likely be arrested for shooting at someone.

So all those gun control measures have little to no practical effect in the city’s most crime-plagued precincts. It’s almost as if that’s all useless window dressing, put in place by politicians so they can say they’ve done something about “gun violence.”

And then there’s the fact that the Chicago Police Department has one of the most abysmally low clearance rates in the nation.

TheΒ Chicago TribuneΒ reportedΒ in August that the department’s clearance rate for homicides has been trending downward, falling to about 17 percent last year. The clearance rate for nonfatal shootings is even lower:Β A University of Chicago Crime Lab analysisΒ found that police solved only 5 percent in 2016, a year in which the city reeled from a surge in violence.

So it’s a self-perpetuating system. The CPD and the city’s famously feckless criminal justice system do a piss-poor job of arresting and prosecuting criminals. That leaves more bad guys on the streets to prey on law-abiding citizens. The citizens know the cops can’t protect them, so they decide to do it themselves by carrying firearms. And since they know the police can’t enforce much of anything, they sidestep the time, trouble and expense of complying with Illinois’ onerous gun control laws.

β€œThe reality is that folks who are shooting people are not getting caught, at least not in a timely manner,” said Jocelyn Fontaine, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and the lead author of the survey. β€œThe folks in these neighborhoods know that, are feeling that, and our survey bears that out.”

Wash, rinse, repeat.

According to The Trace the researchers found that getting a gun isn’t a problem.

The majority of those who took the survey β€” 69 percent β€” said it would only take hours to acquire a firearm. When asked how young people manage to get guns, huge majorities said common ways were through street dealers, buying or borrowing from a friend or family member, or stealing. Twenty-five percent said people were likely to acquire a gun by finding one on the street, in the garbage, or in a railroad train, while only 8 percent said they were likely to buy a weapon from a gun store or at a gun show.

Have you ever “found” a gun on a railroad train? That seems to happen a lot in the Windy City.

Long story short, there are plenty of guns to be had, one way or another. Chicago politicians like failed Mayor Rahm Emanuel love to blame surrounding states and their “lax” gun laws for his city’s crime problems. But no one ever seems to ask those same blame-shifting hacks why those other states’ crime rates are so comparatively low given their easier access to firearms.

In the Urban Institute survey, when respondents were asked about what might keep young people from packing heat, the majority β€” 58 percent β€” agreed that having a well-paying job was a big factor. Large proportions also said young people wouldn’t carry guns if their friends didn’t either, or if they knew they would be arrested.

Or just maybe the CPD could arrest more criminals and the court system could actually incarcerate them. If there were fewer people on the streets threatening the lives and livelihoods of the kind of people the survey covered, life on Chicago’s south and west sides would be much improved. And far less violent.

 

 

75 COMMENTS

  1. Well golly water is wet and the sky is blue…The Tiny DancerΒ© will still blame everyone but his inept,corrupt and ineffective “leadership”. It’s gonna get worse too. They’ll end up with Willie Wilson handing out 100 dollar bills or Jesus Garcia. Neither can put a coherent sentence together😦

    • The really galling part about Willie Wilson handing out Franklins, it apparently isn’t illegal!

      I’ve heard the ‘Dancer’ is considering another political run.

      Any truth to that?

      • Rumor was he had national aspirations, but since he’s crapped the bed in Chicago, he’s probably damaged goods.

      • The demtards are still hunting for a Pres candidate for 2020. Is tiny any more ludicrous that Hillary3, JoeBiden, JohnVietnam Kerry, a flaming VT Marxist, a Kenyan Muuuslem, a flaming bag of poo ?

  2. If someone wants them a firearm, they will get themselves one. Or more. Laws be damned.

    Well, I’m relived to see Dan Z. hasn’t expired on us. Pushing 11 AM, I was getting worried…

    • They’re just now starting to recover from the OU-Texas and Kavanaugh victory celebrations.

  3. So, support constitutional carry… The Second Amendment is our permit… there is no such thing as pre-crime… murder is a crime… It’s already against the law… Second Amendment is the law of the land… Shall not be infringed… What’s not to understand about that… Unless your for bigger government- a statist , an authoritarian, a communism, a globalist RINO, or a Demo-CRAPS….

    • “As it turns out, many of those surveyed don’t bother with FOID cards, background checks or concealed carry permits.”

      That is what the cursory reading of the second amendment says.

      • Our oldest son, his wife, and their two young children live in Chiraq. I bought him a pistol so he could have some protection at his home. He said, “Dad, I don’t think I can have a gun in Chicago”. I replied, “I don’t know why not. Everybody else is packing”.

    • One more time…with feeling.

      You can scream “Shall Not Be Infringed” forever, and it has no legal meaning. That is, anyone arrested for a gun-related infraction can present the Second Amendment as their entire defense, and those anyones will be convicted immediately. The Second Amendment has no effective meaning if you cannot legally enforce it. Just recently….(from Bearing Arms), a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling upheld a 10-round magazine ban. The judge reasoned that regarding ammunition magazines, the level of review needed was only “intermediate”. That declaration permits (as do federal courts) a court to use a “balancing test” to determine if a particular firearm restriction is permissible. The upshot is that a magazine ban “… must further an important government interest by a a method substantially related to the interest.” Note that the US Constitution does not establish levels of scrutiny for resolving issues of enumerated and unenumerated rights.

      If you live in New Jersey, and you are found to possess a magazine with capacity exceeding 10-rounds, you will be arrested, and you will be tried, and you will be convicted. The Second Amendment provides no relief from “intermediate scrutiny”, nor government “compelling interest”. To obtain relief, such a case must be accepted by the US Supreme Court, and result in a ruling favorable to the convicted person. It may be possible to obtain an injunction preventing jail time until the matter exhausts appeals; you may not. Even the US Supreme Court recognizes scrutiny levels and “compelling interest”.

      This is the reality. Infinitely repeating “Shall Not Be Infringed” will not change reality. More must be done.

      • You can scream β€œShall Not Be Infringed” forever, and it has no legal meaning. That is, anyone arrested for a gun-related infraction can present the Second Amendment as their entire defense

        Most idiotic post ever. You fail law 101 and logic 101. people are not claiming second amendment protection when it comes to committing assaults, but rather constitutionally problematic laws on acquiring firearms and what type.

        • “…people are not claiming second amendment protection when it comes to committing assaults, but rather constitutionally problematic laws on acquiring firearms and what type.”

          Which is the entire point of my comment. “Shall Not Be Infringed” has no legal power to shield you from being arrested, or constrained in the type, number or capability of a firearm.

        • Sammy, Your ignorance is deep. The infringement aspect of the text has been cited in well over 100 federal gun control cases and state appellate cases. In fact NY City is right now in a federal case where the city is claiming an aspect of their gun control is not an infringement. They recognize that infringement is unconstitutional.

          Try again.

          • Re-read your own response. Nowhere do you cite a single example where “Shall Not Be Infringed”, as a statement, as a legal filing, resulted in overturning any infringement of the Second Amendment. “Shall Not Be Infringed”, no other logic or argument regarding the infringing regulation/law.

            Even the NY case you cite is not using the single phrase “Shall Not Be Infringed”, or any statement that “Shall Not Be Infringed” is an absolute prohibition of government attempts to regulate firearms. Never has “Shall Not Be Infringed” stopped a gun regulation.

            The courts do not look at a gun regulation/law and then compare that regulation/law to the actual wording of the Second Amendment, concluding “Shall Not Be Infringed” means nohow, no way, no time, not never.

            C’mon man, use your head. When/where has any lawyer opposing a gun regulation filed a challenge that simply stated the wording of the Second Amendment, and demanded immediate repeal of that gun regulation? When has any court agreed with such filing?

        • The issue of infringement is in fact one of the central premises in court tests of all recent gun control.

          One of the likely first cases to go to SCOTUS that now has another expert on gun law issues, Justice Kavanaugh, will be the NY case which is about infringement.

          To say the infringement issue is not important is a spurious claim. When it is of course as of more important than the “abridging” clause on the First Amendment.

          • “To say the infringement issue is not important is a spurious claim.”

            Never said any such thing. I said “Shall Not Be Infringed” is meaningless as a defense against gun laws. “Shall Not Be Infringed” is not an introductory phrase to carving out exceptions. It is not a defense against being charged with “gun crimes” regarding when, where, what type firearm is permissible at any given time. Claims may be made that a law “infringes” on the Second Amendment, but the words are never cited as an absolute block against government infringement. Decisions always turn on whether a “gun law” is an impermissible infringement.

            It is not Kryptonite to the law enforcement, nor judicial venues. “Shall Not Be Infringed” has meaning on its face, or it has only that meaning which the power structure permits. Obviously it is the latter.

        • Seems like Sam I Am would rather be Sam I Was (aka: RIP) because he is hung up about the courts refusing to acknowledge the plain reading of the Constitution. ‘It is not the function of the government from keeping the citizens from falling into error. It is the function of the citizens from keeping the government from falling into error’ – former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

  4. Some of these things don’t add up. If 94% are carrying for self-defense, why would having a well-paid job change that? Unless, of course, criminals aren’t the most honest people in the world, and they in fact had other reasons for carrying, for instance, to commit armed robbery or eliminate competitors in the drug trade.

    Now, don’t get me wrong – criminals have very good reason to want a gun for self-defense. The associates and rivals of violent criminals tend to be, after all, violent criminals. But let’s not kid ourselves about what they’re doing with their guns when they’re not defending their own lives, and I don’t mean hunting quail or Cowboy Action shooting.

    • Some of them may be good law abiding people hiding out in their houses, afraid for their lives, but some are definitely criminals and gang members, defending themselves or fellow members and turf, and also using them for their “work.”

      As usual, criminals don’t obey the law, so gun control only affects the law abiding.

      Either the government will eventually fully support the second amendment, or we will all eventually be criminals.

    • Since we have a right to carry then leave that out of your question. The response was about the criminal element. 1.5% of inner city residents do the killing. The next 1.5% are followers choosing this over what they would consider a lesser or more dangerous position. This leaves the 97% who are law abiding citizens terrorized by the few.

      The β€œgood paying job” makes for less susceptibility to do crime as a job. The Gov. has found that in Iraq when the electricity stays on shop keepers open for biz and sweep the sidewalk in front of their shops. Community pride comes back people care about their neighbors and neighborhood. Living in life and death stress daily affects every aspect of us.

      So take Madison Ave and all the suits. Let them arm up and you have no increase in crime. The suits have a vested interest in going home to their families and doing biz. They have a way to work and provide for their families. They have a way for their children to continue their family’s standard of living. Remember the Mafia says chaos is bad for business.

      • Yet people think a strong/violent minority can’t have power over the people. They refer to them as the fringe… Those people fail to realize that the majority can be corralled by a small group.

        They will win because a strong minority is able to push the passive majority to the path of least resistance.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQw21ntR64

  5. It’s all just Russian collusion I tell you…..we need more control, but on politicians and Nanny’s like Bloomy and evil creepy devil people like Soros.

    Over 500 million guns are out there. More than 120 million gun owners. Their utopia will never come to pass. They can make them illegal tomorrow, but who’s gonna step up and take them away? And who they gonna get to invade? Troops with blue helmets? Our military will not be on their side. Libtards HATE that they cannot control the masses.

      • This made me realize why the NRA was so against firearm registration. It took years for people to get their LEGALLY owned firearms back. I’m sure that those without lawyers never got them back. The only people that were armed were the criminals who turned to looting. So yes the military will come and confiscate your firearms, I have no doubt, because they did it there.

        • People forget the military is a bunch of kids who are indoctrinated to follow orders without question. Look at this current generation’s understanding of the concept of liberty and the constitution. You think they are the same type of people who joined the military during WWII? A lot of them join for the money and increasingly for citizenship.

        • During Prohibition the Feds came and legally confiscated alcohol, house to house. They will do the same with weapons.

          If you, personally, do not have some measures in place NOW to deflect this usurpation of the 2nd Amendment, you will be disarmed.

          My family had cause to retail alcohol throughout Prohibition. They were able to do so because they were closed-mouthed and they hid the hootch.

          There’s no magic. It’s all a chess game with your freedom at stake.

  6. “1/10 believed they would likely be arrested for shooting at someone.” What? I don’t understand this– are they just really ignorant or are they implying that since it’s a high-crime area that the cops wouldn’t bother arresting them in a good-shoot scenario? Am I missing something?

    • I’m guessing it’s simply that they see enough shootings to have a good idea of the odds. Not stupidity, nor necessarily indiffernt cops … Just observational evidence and experience.

    • You didn’t catch that the clearance rate for *murders* (not just shootings) was 17%? Everybody knows a dozen thugs who have shot someone, no one ever even questioned them, what would you expect?

      • The “community sensitive” academics and the press will tell you this is about the “community” not trusting the police. But the data say that is not the case. The data show that active prosecution of minor crimes leads people to cough up murderers.

        The left wing criminal justice academics say the ‘broken windows” policies don’t work by leaving out this extremely important aspect: Arresting for minor crimes often takes up prior offenders or people on probation who are highly motivated to drop a dime on a murderer when that theft from auto might mean five or ten years due to priors or other wants/warrants

    • That’s because ‘progressives’, don’t think, they only react. They live in their amygdalas, the lizard part of all mammal’s brains, that only does four things. Coincidently, these are the same 4 things that lizards do, since that is the only ‘brain’ that lizards possess.
      These are: 1. fight; 2. flight; 3. feed; 4. mate.
      So the progtards actually CAN understand two other things besides phallus(mate) and fear(flee), They can also fit fighting and feasting into their tiny little brain. Which, if one watches their antics in the beltway and California lately, is obvious. If they aren’t fighting or eating, it’s hookers and blow. All free. Courtesy of the US taxpayer…

  7. Their sense of fear was rooted in their experiences living in crime-afflicted neighborhoods: More than a third of the same group of respondents said they had either been shot or shot at during the past year. Eighty-five percent knew someone else who had been shot or targeted.

    Anyone else notice how The Trace tries to poo-poo LEGITIMATE FEAR as nothing more than a mere “sense” of fear.

  8. The people described carry guns because other people carry guns. Eliminate guns, and the problem of people with guns goes away. How simple can this get?

    Take guns away from everyone, and gun deaths are eliminated as a problem. Deaths by other weapons almost exclusively happens to bad people in bad neighborhoods. Stay out of those places, and you don’t have to worry about other weapons. How simple can this get?

    The common element in the story is the presence of guns. Remove guns, and there is no story. Who would want to write, or even read, a news article about “Because guns are not available, there are no gun deaths to report.”? How simple can this get?

    If people were reduced to just stones, it would be too much effort to harm others so the incidence of violent crime would be near zero. We need a tool registry, to ensure only trained and good people have tools that can cause death. Buying tools or any utensil that can be used to harm others should require a universal background check (even for temporary transfers between friends and family, a TOID, and certificate of training in the use of whichever utensil is desired.

    We routinely put people on the space station, we can solve the problem of people harming other people.

    • Actually, we don’t put people up in the ISS anymore. NASA has to bum rides from the Russians… Thanks Obama.

        • ” β€œSam I Am” lives in a fact free zone β€” so no surprise he did not know that. ”

          Fact: Americans are on the ISS
          Fact: Russia did not capture and send them
          Fact: America provided the astronauts who are present on ISS
          Fact: America, via a Russian taxi cab, put Americans on the ISS

          But I need to stop making you look foolish. The original comment was SNARK! SARCASM!

          Fact: You missed it entirely.

    • Those people just said “for protection” not “for protection from people with guns.”

      Your injecting “because guns,” not reading it. Someone who just spent a sentence in county lifting weights has a massive advantage over me if we both only have knives. With a gun that physical advantage is removed. Now the only difference is motivation, and I am way more motivated to protect myself that someone else is to harm me.

      The fact is that civilian gun ownership saves more lives than it “costs,” and attributing that cost to guns is wrong anyway.

      The fact is also that no authority on the globe can rid a county of guns. It’s simply not possible. That cat is out of the bag and never going back in.

      • Even if they really really really want to, click their heels together three times and will KILL YOU in order to “save” you?

      • “The fact is also that no authority on the globe can rid a county of guns. It’s simply not possible.”

        My Daddy always told me, “When you say ‘can’t’, you are correct.”

        However….

        You have only begun the journey to truth, Grasshopper. The obvious is often a trap.

        • Fortunately, more and more people have guns (although more and more are smart enough to avoiding some stranger), and this creates a deterrence to violent crime.

          US homicide rate fell to half the levels of 25 years ago, as gun carriers increased between 8 to 12 fold.

          • “Fortunately, more and more people have guns (although more and more are smart enough to avoiding some stranger), and this creates a deterrence to violent crime.”

            “US homicide rate fell to half the levels of 25 years ago, as gun carriers increased between 8 to 12 fold.”

            Since you missed the point of my silliness, and introduced some interesting claims, let’s go with that for a moment.

            – More guns creates a deterrence to violent crime
            – – Kinda need some empirical evidence, beyond a few anecdotes, don’t we?

            – US homicide rate falls, gun owner ship rises
            – – correlation, or cause? how do we know?

        • WE have plenty of empirical evidence, and it is causal — the two to three million crimes prevent by gun owners per year. That is not “anecdote, it is part of millions of dollars in data collection by the CDC and NIH.

          That is why similar demographic same region states or within a state, counties, with more guns have less crime. Compare Maryland vs Virginia.

          • “WE have plenty of empirical evidence, and it is causal β€” the two to three million crimes prevent by gun owners per year. ”

            Defense/response to deadly attack is indicative of failure of deterrence. One needs unquestionable proof that the number of people who own guns, who might possess a gun at any moment, deters other persons from committing armed crimes.

        • Defense/response to deadly attack is indicative of failure of deterrence

          You spout even more nonsense. Showing a gun and having a criminal attacker flee, as happens millions of times, is deterrence. Please go back to grade school.

          We know more guns reduces crimes and we know the correlation is causal as well, since defensive gun uses CAUSE criminal attackers to flee the vast majority of the time.

          • Hello, if you have to present a gun, the deterrence of widespread gun possession failed; the bad guys didn’t believe there was/is a risk of retaliation. True deterrence would be indicated not only by a casual relationship between gun ownership and reduced crime, we would see a notable decline in the number of defensive gun uses.

            Actual deterrence works like this:
            Bad guys are armed, and threaten to attack the good guys.
            Good guys are armed, and threaten to render attacking bad guys ambient temperature.
            Bad guys decide the threatened response is real, and likely.
            Armed bad guys decide to not attack (or very rarely attack) armed good guys.
            Deterrence is effective.
            (see Mutually Assured Destruction as a guide)

            Armed bad guys do not believe armed retaliation is a real threat.
            Armed bad guys attack armed good guys.
            Deterrence failed; response/retaliation is required.

            And you still missed the point of my original comment.

      • “Wait, was this a poe?”

        It is what it is.

        Or, maybe it isn’t.

        I can’t be sure.

        Have fun with it.

    • Look at Japan, which has even more violent death than the US (as do many other developed democracies) with virtually no guns.

      Guns overall reduce violence, the data an science clearly show this.

      About three million crimes are prevented by gun owners every year.

      • “Look at Japan, which has even more violent death than the US (as do many other developed democracies) with virtually no guns.”

        Japan is a whole ‘nuther country.

        You cannot believe how small the average person’s living space is, but what has that to do with living space in the US?

        • since you mentioned Japan in a prior thread, before realizing that it has a higher rate of suicide plus homicide, why are you now crying?

          • “since you mentioned Japan in a prior thread, before realizing that it has a higher rate of sucide plus suicide, why are you now crying?”

            Not following you here. Japan is irrelevant when considering “gun laws”. Different environment, different culture, different societal codes, different war experiences, just plain different.

        • Well every country, state, county and town is different. What is the point of you spouting a tautology?

          That does not change the fact that we know from Japan and Australia that reducing guns is more harmful.

    • Deaths by other weapons almost exclusively happens to bad people in bad neighborhoods

      data show death rates don’t change when your remove guns, just the means.
      Your implication that jumping from a building, slashing wrists, bombing people in amass killing or knifing someone in an everyday killing is less violent is bizarre

      • “Your implication that jumping from a building, slashing wrists, bombing people in amass killing or knifing someone in an everyday killing is less violent is bizarre.”

        Not only did you miss the easter eggs in the comment, I did not imply anything about the nature of the violence of non-firearm weapons. Indeed, I noted that if people were relieved of all implements that could be used as weapons, we would be reduced to using rocks…which are just too much trouble to use effectively, or on a large scale. Given a massive arms reduction from the general population, the number of violent deaths would drop precipitously.

        Suicides were ignored in the original comment.

        • Data, evidence and history say you are wrong. Not only war, but interpersonal violence was higher back when there were less capable weapons. Read Steven Pinkers extensive work on this. If people are using rocks or knives or spears you get higher rates of criminal murder and violence, not lower.

          Why is well understood. Guns are much more amenable to defensive use. For non violent people, non predatory people, guns work better than rocks or iron pipes to defend themselves. A criminal person used to violence commission has no problem taking the initiative with shock attack, initiative of violence using visceral non ranged attack means. they have both the mental attitude (predation) and the skills.

          You actually said being reduced to stones makes for less violence when the opposite is true — and the people who work directly in the history of this will tell you that you have it backwards.

          With a firearm you can stand off, force a lot of confrontations to be ranged which allows for your firearm to be a deterrence to any violence from an attempted aggressor from occurring at all.

          This is exactly why more guns have resulted in less criminal violence

  9. some carry to protect themselves from the kind of people who hold mock shootings at high school halftime shows

  10. Who’s going to step up and take them away? I don’t know, but Im sure “they” will fuck us around somehow.

  11. Gee, just because you live in the most racist city in America, with high crime and a totally corrupt and incompetent police force, I don’t see why somebody would want to be able to protect THEMSELVES…

    My family found out what “protection” by the Chicago Police Department was worth during the 1919 race riot, during which that same department openly REFUSED to protect the Black community from arsonists and rioters like future Democrat mayor Richard J. Daley.

  12. Chicago’s murder rate has fallen and risen exactly inverse with incarceration rates. That includes murder by gun, knife, bludgeoning, strangulation and beating.

    It is obviously not about guns but about the proportion of criminals on the streets at a given time.

    Chicago region has one of the lowest actual time served for violent felonies

  13. I call BS.

    What needs to happen is “stop and frisk.” That’s what the government should do to treat gun violence. Get rid of the fourth and fifth amendment. If you got nothing to hide, you won’t mind. Guilty until frisked or body scanned. Do it for public safety, do it for the children. Stop the epidemic of keeping and bearing arms. Set us free of this virus by cleansing the nation of weapons of war. Then we won’t have the side effect that is gun violence.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aor6-DkzBJ0

    /s

  14. Chicago residents, and for that matter, many other urban centers have created their own hell by continuing to vote for democrats. The democrats promise the world, lots of free stuff, enact useless laws that obviously, by the info presented in this story, have little to no effect on crime. When will they wise up?

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