There’s an obvious problem with this plan.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is proposing a far-reaching ordinance that would keep gun stores out of most parts of the city and require them to videotape every sale to deter customers from buying firearms for crooks.
The ordinance is a response to a federal judge’s ruling in January that Chicago’s longtime ban on gun stores was unconstitutional.
Emanuel chose not to fight the decision, and the court gave the city six months to approve store restrictions short of a ban. The deadline is July 14.
Under the proposed ordinance, special-use zoning would keep gun stores out of 99.5 percent of Chicago, limiting them to pockets of the North, West and South sides, city officials said. The stores could not be within 500 feet of a school or park.
Who keeps the video records, and what will be done with them?
In 2012, the AP reported that about 80% of Chicago’s murders were gang-related. There are between 70,000 and 100,000 gang members in Chicago. The violence they are inflicting on Chicago is largely the result of territorial disputes as they carve out the illegal drug trade. While straw purchasers do supply some gangs their guns, the gangs also operate theft rings that just go and steal the guns from houses around the city and in the suburbs. Or they steal them off of trains.
Videotaping law-abiding gun owners won’t stop that. Cracking down on the gangsters itself might.
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