Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago witnessed a 139 percent increase in murder during July 2020 when compared to July 2019.
ABC7 reported there were 105 murders in July 2020, up from “the 44 reported in July 2019.”
Moreover, there were 406 “shooting incidents” in Chicago during the month of July 2020, an increase of 75 percent “from the 232 last July,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Over a longer span of time, murders were up 51 percent from January 1, 2020, through July 31, 2020, compared to murders for the same period of time in 2019, according to the Sun-Times.
Lightfoot blamed Chicago mayhem and bloodshed on gun friendly states during a July 26, 2020, appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.
According to The Hill, Lightfoot told CNN, “Our gun problem is related to the fact that we have too many illegal guns on our streets, 60 percent of which come from states outside of Illinois.”
She added, “We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons — that is hurting cities like Chicago.”
Lightfoot did not mention that the Chicago area already has an “assault weapons” ban via a Cook County ordinance. Nor did she mention background checks are a federal requirement, mandated for all retail gun sales in every state of the Union, whether that is Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, or California.
The mayor also failed to noted that her state, Illinois, requires everyone to obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card before being allowed to possess a gun, and the process for obtaining that card includes a background check.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.