It turns out Kim Foxx’s 33 months in office have caused the last 50 years of gun violence in Chicago. Needless to say this is not an evidence based analysis but it one pushed by the FOP on a recent segment on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom show.
They segment was seeking to cover the Mayor Lightfoot and Senator Ted Cruz Twitter back and forth about gun violence in Chicago but neither Lightfoot or Cruz would appear. So they were let with FOP Spokesman Martin Preib to enlighten a national audience about issues with guns and violence in Chicago.
We could not get the video from Fox News to embed properly. So instead here is the link for you to watch the video yourself.
Most guns are illegal obtained
Well this is generally true but the problem is it is very misleading. Most guns are purchased by straw purchasers in the states detailed in the map below and then resold on the street in Chicago. Now, when it is sold on the street that transaction is illegal but the original purchase of the gun, the majority of the time, is legal in the state where the purchase happens and occurs outside of Illinois a lot of the time. Lightfoot’s point is that if the states detailed on the map had stronger gun laws then it is very likely those straw gun purchases would not be able to occur and there would be significantly less guns on the street.
Gun are not going to illuminate much in Chicago
One thing I have never understood is that one of the most likely groups of people to be a victim of gun violence is the police yet they seem like they are all for guns to be widely available. Wouldn’t they be safer if there were no guns available to the public? It would seem an organization dedicated to representing the interests of thousands of Chicago’s patrol officers would put their safety as a top priority.
Regardless, this is Preib trying to stick to his talking point that he came on the show to push. All the gun violence problems in Chicago are due to the 33 months of Kim Foxx’s tenure as the Cook County State’s Attorney. Like all 50 years that is! This is one of the FOP’s more magical conspiracy theories.
What this is in reality is the FOP responding to be challenged by anyone. They have had the same complaints for 50 years. All the prosecutors suck! They are all politically controlled and corrupt. The only thing holding this city together is FOP’s membership. Their membership can do nothing wrong. NOTHING! Even this was actually a good shooting with a hard working officer doing his job and the outcry of horrible liberals forced the corrupt justice system to sacrifice the honorable Jason Van Dyke. Yes, the justice system is horrible when it investigates or prosecutes Chicago Police officers.
2 things to concentrate on – Gangs & elected officials doing their job
This is a continuation of the attempt to link gun violence in Chicago to Foxx and the reforms she has started putting in to place. Why isn’t the FOP presenting evidence that there is a direct causal relationship. They don’t have any. The FOP is fact challenged and loves to hurl wild unproven accusations around that make good headlines for the media they hate. For an organization whose membership is supposedly trained to locate and follow evidence the FOP is certainly not constrained by facts the way one would imagine them to be.
Prosecutor (Foxx) is not prosecuting the laws that they should. This is what the real threat is. The gun debate is secondary.
The interesting part of this statement is that it alleges that at some time prior to Foxx there was a prosecutor that was prosecuting the laws that they should. Given the FOP history of complaining about every prosecutor obviously there is some revisionist history going on here. It seems a little hypocritical to now say past prosecutors were doing their jobs when just a few years ago you said they all horrible.
Another critical hypocrisy here is in this interview they mention all the guns the FOP members take off the streets yet that doesn’t matter. If only that horrible prosecutor did her job everything would be great in Chicago.
This is just another example of the warped way the FOP experiences and remembers reality. We believe that much of this is due to the impact of the echo chamber the FOP cannot seem to find their way out of. Until they do we will be stuck hearing about their conspiracy theory du jour.
