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Nearly 30 years ago Chicago banned handguns.  The law was implemented during 1982 in response to gang and firearm violence.  The stated rationale for the gun ban was that it would reduce firearm related crime and murders.

In 1998, 16 years later, Chicago became the Murder Capital of the United States. 

In 2008 the Windy City recorded 511 homicides compared to 314 military fatalities in Iraq. 

2010 has been a bloody year so far.  Local gun ban supporters have demanded that the national guard be brought in to quell the violence.

After 30 years of empirical data which defies the gun ban legislation's stated rationale, political ideologues in Chicago cling to the unconstitutional edict as theology.

A few weeks ago there was a gun exchange program which netted 4,050 weapons in exchange for $100 gift cards.  Politicians are optimistic that spending $405,000 to buy old, rusty and non-functional weapons is beneficial and will reduce violence.  I observe that the gun exchange program was implemented in 2004 and has been operating since.   

I wonder how many gang members and murderers turned in their guns?

Perpetuating Bad Legislation, In Defiance of Reality, for the Sake of Political Theology

The failed gun ban is illustrative of a dangerous political phenomenon which appears to be increasing in prominence.  There is an institutional lack of accountability in modern U.S. politics; especially relative to self-described Liberal legislation, regulation and social policy.  It is only the stated intention of public policy that matters.  If a bill sounds good it is worth doing.  The actual result is irrelevant. 

Guns were banned to stop murders.  Murders continued and have gotten worse over the years.  Yet politicians continue to argue that the unconstitutional ban is necessary to prevent murders. 

If the benefits specifically purported to result from a law's passage do not materialize, that legislation has failed.  But politicians in Chicago cling to their gun ban as a badge of honor.  It is the manifestation of pure political ideology.  In reality, the only benefits derived from the law are measured in good intentions and found in the imaginations of its supporters.

The predictable defense for these policy failures is that "things would have been worse" without the legislation.  This cowardly, intellectually vacant argument is the universal defense for Government intrusion, and is an assault on both free markets and individual freedom.

Stimulus spending was justified based on purported unemployment and economic recovery benefits.  None of those claims resulted, but the wasteful spending is defended because "things would have been worse".  In fact, things are worse because an incremental trillion dollars in debt now acts to burden the economy.  But the bill's stated intention was pure, so revisionists continue to support the policy failure. 

Whether it is high unemployment 18 months after Stimulus Spending, or record murders in a city after 30 years of banned guns, these policies simply do not work and should be objectively condemned.

Brazenly Unconstitutional

The stated argument for the constitutionality of Chicago's gun ban was that states and cities have the ability to invalidate components of the Bill of Rights if they decide it is in their best interest to do so.  This is a truly bizarre defense because if it were true any city in America could ban Free Speech, Unreasonable Search and Seizure, Due Process or Trial by Jury. 

The gun ban is an obvious violation of the US Constitution and was overturned by the Supreme Court today.   

While the Court preserved its credibility as an institution with the ruling, the 5-4 vote casts a pall over the future of a country under siege by a Government intent on perpetually expanding its influence and undermining freedoms afforded to its citizenry.