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Is Mayor Daley the #1 gun control advocate in America?
by Justin Kaufmann | Apr. 04, 2011
Today, Mayor Richard M. Daley spoke at a ribbon cutting for a new housing development in North Lawndale bearing Martin Luther King, Jr.'s name. Today is the anniversary of MLK's assasination in 1968.
He did not take questions at this press availability. But what he did do was spend a few minutes riling up the crowd on the need for more gun control. It's a good speech for championing his cause as a politician, but it strikes me that there are probably no other politicians in this country that would go as far as calling out the gun lobby and publicly outing the federal government for not doing more.
Wikipedia has a list of the top 35 gun control advocates in America. The list includes prominent Democrat politicians like Sen. Fienstein (California), Sen. Charles Shumer (NY) and James Brady (the official gun control advocate). The list also includes Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel.
But I would like to make an argument that none of those politicians sound like this:
Daley-guns.mp3
Now that Mayor Daley enters into his final month in office, will we expect the same advocacy from our new mayor?
As senior content developer for WBEZ, Justin is responsible for the WBEZ web site. Justin is an ensemble member of the comedy group Schadenfreude, which formerly had a weekly radio program on WBEZ.
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Comments
Daley and Bloomberg are kind of neck and neck for the dubious distinction of having their heads waaaay up their colons on this topic.
Daley has a far more corrupt city to futz with, but Bloomberg spends more of his personal fortune on Quixotic bull puckey.
I sure hope so, because he's incompetent, silly, and completely ineffective. The sort of enemy we all want if we end up with an enemy.
"As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of 'self-defense.' In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law." Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Chapter II, Black Power, Page 55, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., First Edition, 1967.
How....who...what the....
First, I think it shameful that Daley should use Dr. King's death to spin up the public on an issue that has no real connection with the killing.
How can anyone who thinks in a rational pattern connect those assassinations with the Right of lawful citizens to protect themselves? Show me how any of those were performed with a legally carried firearm.
Criminals are criminals...if their mind is set on killing, no law on weapons will stop them from doing so.
It's been said that insanity is repeating yourself and expecting different results. Clearly the IL ban on lawfully carried firearms isn't working, so let's not repeat it.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg is at least as delusional as Daley. He even has a billboard truck.
How did this man get elected all those times? He cannot make a coherent argument.
How he can use the tragic assassination of Dr. King to push his failed anti-gun agenda is beyond me.
We hear the same old lame arguments over and over. Years of Daley's gun control in Chicago did absolutely nothing to curb the gang bangers who are responsible for the vast majority of violence in the city. People have the right to protect themselves and their families. It's time Illinois joins the rest of the nation and allows its law abiding citizens their constitutional right to bear arms. All I can say to Daley is watch out for the door on the way out.
The Honorable Mayor Richard Daley has said nothing that will stop the violence, whether it be inflicted by a knife (virtually banned in public), a loaded gun (banned on the public way and the garage; actually every where), a bat (not banned, yet), or a motor vehicle( not banned). Oh, knives, guns, bats, and motor vehicles don't inflicted damage. Its the people who stab, shoot, swing, and drive recklessly.
All cries from the ghetto!! all useless propogande, not to meansion the political suicide he just committed when challenging the NRA and every law abiding gun owning citizen in this country. His focus should not be to create more useless Housing Developments but to create programs that will get those ppl jobs and create more crime fighting units to combat the enormous drug and gang problem associated with those ppl.
Daley is no longer king in a couple months. Will he still have armed guards? I hope the answer is no, since then he might start to gain a new perspective on what life is like for the peasants. ...assuming he doesn't simply leave his handiwork for everyone else to clean up while he skips town.
I think this is amazing he's speaking out publicly for the need for gun control. He's not advocating the removal of the 2nd amendment but he's talking about public safety and the need for better laws surrounding private citzens carrying concealed weapons. Yes violence can be comitted with any number of methods, but gun violence is so pervasive in the american culture, we need to review the information we have and come up with viable ways to lessen the deaths associated with the gun violence. Invoking Dr. King on this day of his assasination is not only appropriate, since he was a man of non-violence, but I believe Dr. King would have agreed with the Mayor's sentiments.
Dick Daley and his nitwit little pal Turbin Dick Durbin are both gun-grabbin' asshats
Why cant he make Chicago safe? He has how many body guards? The police Dept. is not big enough to protect everyone. we have to protect ourself or stay home and wait hoping we will not get robed or murdered. And wait for 911takes to long we could be dead by the time the police arrive, [and i am not bad mouthing the police dept.]