A teachable moment

Last time there was a major holiday--Memorial Day--Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was calling for more gun-control laws.

With parrot-like timbre, on the heels of a blood-bathed Fourth of July weekend in which 82 Chicagoans were shot and 16 died, His Honor asked again, "Where are the gun laws?"

That's an easy one. They're on Illinois' and Chicago's books, in spades.

Illinois law requires a handgun license, technically termed a Firearm Owner's Identification or FOID card. The law makes residents ineligible for a FOID card if they:

have a felony conviction;

have a record of domestic violence;

have been convicted of assault or battery;

are the subject of a protection or restraining order;

have been a mental-institute patient within the past five years;

are mentally defective;

are illegal immigrants.

The FOID card must be presented at any firearm-sales transaction, public or private (even private sellers are required by law to keep records for 10 years). Anybody who buys handgun ammunition must also present a valid FOID card.

Chicago residents are subject to even more strict gun laws. The city has banned assault weapons and magazines holding more than 15 rounds. City dwellers must report the sale or transfer of a firearm 48 hours in advance. Until this year (when a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional), Chicago banned the sale of all firearms within the city limits.

Families with children in Chicago are required to store their guns in locked containers or install trigger locks. Cook County allows only one firearm purchase per month, and licensed gun dealers must receive county approval on all sales.

Where are the gun laws? Seriously?

A better question is, why is Mayor Emanuel or anybody else shocked that criminals disobey them?

Police reports haven't said, but it's a safe bet that few of the individuals responsible for the 82 Chicago weekend shootings possessed a FOID card.

In homage to Independence Day's namesake document, here are some self-evident truths regarding violent criminals and gun crime that Chicago politicians (and others) need to wake up to.

Violent offenders don't change their stripes. Over and over, Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy said of alleged gunmen, "He shouldn't have been on the street."

Parole doesn't work for violent criminals, who are recidivists by nature. Rehabilitation doesn't work. Community service doesn't work. The only thing that works is long-term separation from society.

Prison needs to be a place where violent criminals are locked up (even imprisonment doesn't stop incorrigible criminals from assaulting and murdering each other).

For nonviolent offenders, we need to devise other effective methods of punishment.

Crime and gun use often start young. To the mayor's credit, he also asked, "Where are the parents?" Were that they were as profligate as gun laws! Sadly, they're too often AWOL.

Chicago has spent nearly $100,000 on the public education of a typical male by the time he's 14. Clearly, other forces (such as gangs) are trumping that investment when it comes to shaping behaviors.

With violent crime in Chicago three and four times the state rate, and exponentially worse in specific segments like the South Side, it's time to wonder aloud whether such sums shouldn't be actively used to relocate young children to better neighborhoods and schools.

Maybe the best argument for a voucher program in places like Chicago is that it might save a child's life.

Gun criminals respect fear more than law. Gang members who disobey orders or break rules face terrifying and barbaric repercussions from their leaders. McCarthy said that's why they won't surrender their guns, even when surrounded by police (two teenagers, ages 14 and 16, were killed because they reportedly aimed weapons at officers).

Blame for those deaths isn't due to lax gun laws, or police brutality, or poverty or race or bad schools or even bad parents. It should fall on gangs.

Police force can't strengthen families, but it can wreak havoc with gangs (recall the 1930s and the fatal ends to which so many gangsters came at the hands of law enforcement).

Until it does, neighborhoods and youth dominated by gangs will never be safe.

Families and society have changed; crime laws should, too. For decades we've been trying to respond to modern crime challenges with antiquated legal remedies.

Ironically, gun laws have been updated repeatedly. But many juvenile and criminal laws are relics of the 1960s, predating things like prevalent single parenthood, modern drug abuse and violent video games.

We collect more data than ever about crime, but it isn't being used to reform our laws. We can pinpoint crime hot spots, we can cross-reference recidivism with other factors, we can analyze and connect motives and deterrents.

But we don't tailor punishments to match crimes with our new understandings. Why is the penalty for gun crime less if the gunman is a bad shot? It's murder if his aim is lethal, but only assault if he misses.

If we truly want to prioritize controlling gun abuse among criminals, the first step is to end the old practice of tying the penalty to a variable outcome, rather than demonstrated homicidal intent.

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Dana Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.

Editorial on 07/11/2014

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