100 Percent Increase In Chicago Homicides Over Same Time Last Year

To date, homicides in Chicago for 2016 are approximately 100 percent higher than they were at this same time last year.

The Chicago Tribune reports there were 47 at this point last year while there have been “at least 95” so far in 2016. There were at least four fatalities in the city over the past weekend alone, with two additional fatalities on Monday.

This is not simply a continuation of the violence we witnessed in Chicago in 2015, but an acceleration with deadly consequences. According to the Tribune, there were “nearly 470 homicides” in Chicago in 2015 and there were 2,986 total shootings–fatal and non-fatal combined. There were “thirty-two” shootings in Chicago over the past weekend alone.

And think about this–Chicago has an “assault weapons” ban, a “violence tax” that raises the price of every gun and bullet sold at retail, limits on the number of gun stores and the locations of those stores, and what the New York Times describes as handgun restrictions that let city leaders “get as close as they could get legally to a ban without a ban.” These regulations represent a veritable wish list for gun controllers around the country, yet they have correlated with more murder, not less.

On October 27, President Obama tried to blame Indiana and Wisconsin for the gun control failure in Chicago. His line of reasoning was that the pro-Second Amendment stance of Indiana and Wisconsin means guns flooding into Chicago from out of state. On February 5, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) blamed Indiana and surrounding states as well.

A Chicago Police Department report shows that 19 percent of the guns recovered at Chicago crime scenes from 2009-2013 were from Indiana. However, that same report showed a larger percentage–20 percent–originated in Chicago. This means a larger percentage of guns found at Chicago crime scenes originated in Chicago area gun stores–where background checks are required–rather than in Indiana, where they are not.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.