Mayor Lightfoot: We Don’t Need Federal Troops, We Need Gun Control

Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) rejected calls for federal HOPE response to the looting and violence overnight in Chicago, opting instead to push for more gun control.

Breitbart News reported that rioters and looters took to the streets of downtown Chicago hours after a 20-year-old man was shot and wounded by police in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown described the 20-year-old as an armed male who allegedly pointed a gun at officers and “shot at officers first.”

Police returned fire and wounded the suspect, and he was hospitalized thereafter.

Brown indicated that calls for looting in downtown Chicago were issued via social media in reaction to the shooting, and he sent 400 officers into downtown. But Breitbart News reported looting and violence still took place, and this included gunfire and violence against police.

WGN-TV anchorman Dan Ponce tweeted video of one scene of destruction Chicago residents awoke to Monday morning:

A reporter asked Mayor Lightfoot about Illinois House Republican Jim Durkin’s calls for the National Guard and others to step in and restore order. She responded by making clear she does not want “federal troops” in Chicago. Rather, she wants more gun control.

@chicagosmayor / Twitter

Lightfoot called for “common sense gun control,” saying, “We cannot continue to have circumstances where anybody and their brother can go across the border, or into other parts of Illinois, and bring illegal guns into the city of Chicago.”

The Hill reported Lightfoot making this same contention July 26, on CNN’s State of Union, telling Jake Tapper, “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.”

On July 29, Breitbart News reported that the majority of guns recovered and traced in Illinois were sourced in Illinois. ATF numbers for 2018 show 5,337 guns recovered in Illinois were traced and sourced as coming from Illinois. Another 4,375 guns recovered in Illinois and traced to their source were from Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Iowa, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, or Michigan.

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.