You do realize that from 1982 until recently, there was a de facto handgun ban in Chicago as well as a onerous firearm registration regimen? All the years of horrific gun violence here happened when you essentially couldn't legally have a handgun.
It seems pretty obvious that a ban wan't working.
Violent crime has been going down across the board, which could be attributed to all sorts of things - better policing strategies, the long term effects of removing lead from gas, etc. It certainly isn't due to gun control.
Posted By: LamontCranston69
This is not a good idea.
Following a year when Chicago led the nation in homicides with more than 500, the city's Police Department said Wednesday that in 2013 the city recorded the fewest killings since 1965 and saw its overall crime rate fall to level not seen since 1972.
The city, which ended the year with a 16 percent drop in crime, saw the numbers of violent crimes, including robbery, aggravated battery and criminal sexual assault drop significantly — some by double digits— as well as drops in burglary and motor vehicle theft.
But it has been the city's homicide rate, especially the toll on young people, that has captured national attention.
The year did not start promisingly, with more than 40 homicides recorded in January, including that of 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton, who was gunned down a mile from President Barack Obama's South Side home. But the rate slowed considerably after that, and by the end of the year the city had recorded 415 homicides, 88 fewer than in 2012 and 20 fewer than in 2011.
"We are making significant progress by putting additional officers in high-crime areas, using intelligence to prevent retaliatory shootings, moving officers from administrative positions back to the streets," Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said in a statement.
One reason Chicago has been in the national spotlight is that in recent years it has recorded more homicides than larger cities like New York City and Los Angeles. That was again true in 2013, with New York recording 333 homicides, the lowest number since comparable record-keeping began in 1963. And, according to the Los Angeles Times, as of Dec. 28, there were 250 homicides in LA, compared with 298 the year before.
In Chicago, the police also said the number of shootings fell 24 percent from 2,448 to 1,864 between 2012 and 2013, and the number of shooting victims dropped from 3,066 to 2,328 for the same period. Further, the department said every police district in the city saw a reduction in crime and all but four of the city's 22 police districts saw the number of homicides either fall or remain the same as the year before.
