Pulaski

Apparently the thing to do in Chicago on the weekend this summer is to get involved in some shooting, and that does not necessarily mean a trip to the range, or at least not as often as it should.

The numbers of reported shooting on recent weekends has been in the 30-50 range, and including 10%-20% fatalities. Last weekend had 47 shootings and 5 fatalities IIRC.

For the weekend of 7/25-7/27 I will open the bidding at 38 shootings including 7 fatalities.

Lion in Winter

That's because we're more free than the rest of the country. Only a few months ago they started to allow concealed carry here - you would think that the shooting would have stopped by now......

This map is from 2013, but you get the idea. It shows the rate of gun murders in certain US cities vs. entire other countries.

scrubbedexpat099

Concealed Carry is having an impact, from what I can gather it is still a difficult process.

Veteran With Concealed Carry Permit Shoots Back At Chicago Gunman

The veteran and three of his friends were leaving a party on the city’s south side. When the group reached their vehicle, a container with liquor was sitting on top of it. A woman from the group asked another group gathered next door who the liquor belonged to and removed it.

The move angered 22 year-old Denzel Mickiel, who approached the veteran and his friends shouting obscenities. The man then went into his residence and returned with a gun.

As Mickiel opened fire on the group, the veteran took cover near the vehicle’s front fender, according to assistant state attorney Mary Hain, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The veteran fired two shots, hitting Mickiel both times.

Two of Mickiel’s friends also began shooting at the group, which was able to flee the scene in their vehicle.

Mickiel was transported to the hospital and is in critical condition. A woman in the veteran’s group was hit twice – once in the arm and once in the back – but was stabilized and taken to the hospital.

Mickiel is charged with attempted murder and will be held on $950,000 bond.

Had Friday’s shooting occurred a little more than a year ago, the veteran would not have been legally permitted to conceal carry his firearm.

scrubbedexpat099

I was just looking at those dots and presume the one in Colorado is Denver, looks a little high.

The Denver area is like most US cities large and most of the action takes place in a limited area. I have met a few people from Chicago who have said the same, so the incidents per 100,000 is misleading.

Lion in Winter

I don't find them misleading at all. In pretty much all cities, and indeed countries, the dire problems are to be found concentrated in certain areas, aren't they?

Sally Redux

Someone else posted this a while back:

Environmental Study Finds Air In Chicago Now 75% Bullets | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Lion in Winter

I knoe someone who went to write for the onion. Dream job.

RoadWarriorFromLP

It must be preferable to working for Rupert Murdoch, the other major source of fake news stories.

Lion in Winter

Certainly less risk of embarrassment and prison, but rather less power.

scrubbedexpat099

That is what I meant, Denver could mean downtown, could include the inner areas, could mean the whole metropolitan area. I usually use Denver to include the whole area. Different definitions, different numbers.

My guess is that the parts of Chicago where the gang bangers are have a much higher number than the map suggests but are averaged out by including areas where the issue uis minor.

Lion in Winter

Sure.

But I don't see why that invalidates the numbers.

scrubbedexpat099

Lots of examples, that just happened to be top in google.

The Gangbanger was the one who went into the House and came out spraying bullets. The CC Holder retrieved his gun and returned fire hitting the assailant twice allowing them to get away.

Lion in Winter

But this is not, of course, a typical situation in which people are getting shot is it. The gun crime, and the additional crimes associated with it, almost never fall into this category of a simple self-defense situation where the armed civilian is a trained ex-soldier to boot. The idea that the hundreds of annual shootings could be stopped by random armed civilians is farcical. Gun crime in Chicago has actually dropped considerably over the last 10 years or so since the introduction of stricter laws, but it can't stop the actual killings until guns become more difficult to get.

scrubbedexpat099

Chicago shootings violence - chicagotribune.com

13 so far.

Crime in Chicagoland -- chicagotribune.com

I do not know Chicago but presume that somebody who did could comment on the distribution.

As far as there being a correlation between Chicago gun laws and deaths I would think that would be very hard to substantiate either way.

Take this situation, a year ago they would not have been able to defend themselves, how many of them would have died?

RoadWarriorFromLP

In a given year, there are about 10,000 gun murders in the United States.

In comparison, there are a few hundred cases of justifiable homicides by civilians who use guns to defend themselves.

Then there are the accidental shootings and other cases in which individuals were shot but not killed. (Thanks to medical science, there are tens of thousands victims of gun violence each year who survive the experience.)

The odds of a gun helping you are low. The odds of a gun hurting you are considerably higher. Recommending guns for self-defense is about as statistically sound as advising that one purchase lottery tickets in order to generate income. Just because it works for a few people doesn't mean that it's a good idea.