Chicago made headlines during pretty much all of 2016 for it’s staggering homicide rate, which hit nearly 800 by year’s end. Many of those murders were committed with firearms, despite the fact that Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the country.
During the January 2 airing of “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” on CNN, the anchor brought up the murder rate in the Windy City and blamed the deaths on Indiana gun laws.
According to this story on breitbart.com, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was the guest. Blitzer told him, “There were more people murdered this past year in Chicago than in New York, a larger city, and Los Angeles, a larger city, combined. Something is obviously very, very wrong in Chicago.”
Issa responded, “It really is. And, not to get into the gun question, they have strong gun laws. The problem is, the gangs have guns and you’re not going to take them away with laws.”
To that, Blitzer responded, “The mayor and others say the problem they have is most of those guns don’t originate in Chicago or even in Illinois, they originate in neighboring Indiana, where the gun laws are much more lax.”
Issa shot down Blitzer’s suggestion, noting that, of course illegal guns used by criminals would have illegal origins, and that it is illegal to buy a gun in Indiana to bring to Chicago.
“Of course, they are illegally bought in most cases—you can’t buy a gun to take to Chicago from Indiana,” Issa said. “So, yes, guns are a problem in the hands of criminals but criminals are a problem whether they have a gun, a knife, or a machine tool, the reality is that (Mayor Emanuel) needs to work with President-Elect Trump when he is President, and ask for the kind of federal help that will allow him to break up these pockets of very bad people.”
Blitzer, of course, didn’t let that sway his opinion and refused to give up the tired gun control narrative he’d begun to spin.
“You could go to Indiana and buy a gun legally a lot easier than in Illinois. You could go to a gun show and you don’t necessarily need a background check to legally purchase a weapon that you drive back to Illinois, go back to Chicago, and kill someone,” Blitzer said.
Issa, again, shot Blitzer down with aplomb.
“If the ease of acquiring guns was the problem,” Issa said. “Gary, Indiana would be the crime capital, not Chicago.”