Chicago has a horrendous murder rate. Black and brown lives apparently don’t matter down there.
One of the reasons? Chicago’s US attorney publicly announced that he’s not going to be chasing after “straw dealers” – people who use their clean criminal records to buy guns to resell to criminals. And so a lot of gang-bangers’ girlfriends and moms and associates are supplying the guns that feed the bloodbath.
Now, Minnesota has both one of the lower murder rates in the country; outside North Minneapolis, our murder rate in 2014 was competitive with the rural west – and a high rate of legal gun ownership outside the hapless metro.
Is Minnesota doing something right?
Well, compared to Chicago, almost everyone is. But yes:
Amid signs of a rise in illegal firearms trafficking, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have hit on a novel strategy to crack down on gun violence and get shooters off the streets. Instead of prosecuting suspects for murder, where convictions can be difficult to obtain, they charge multiple defendants with conspiracy to buy and possess guns illegally.
The strategy is rooted in the successful prosecution of 11 gang members in 2014, after what authorities called an “all-out shooting gang war” in the Twin Cities. Prosecutors built a conspiracy case that produced 10 guilty pleas and a jury trial conviction of the gang’s leader, Veltrez Black, who was sentenced this spring to 15 years in prison.
Now a Minnesota prosecutor has been asked to share the strategy with Chicago authorities, who are grappling with near nightly volleys of gunfire throughout their city.
Prosecuting criminals to lower crime.
Who’da thunk it?
Now this is interesting:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/
White men have the most access to firearms (gun owner or gun in household), Blacks have the least access. Yet Blacks are disproportionately more likely to commit gun crimes (and be victims of gun crime, though this research does not cover that). Common sense would tell you that access to firearms is not the largest factor in gun crime — except in a ban-cars-to-eliminate-automobile-accident-deaths way.
But the anti-gun crowd left reason behind it long, long ago. Why put so much emphasis on banning ‘assault rifles’ that are used to commit so few crimes?
Oh Merg, Merg, Merg.
Conspiracy is the tool government uses to lock up people they want locked up without having to go through the trouble of proving they actually broke the law.
Government (that means coppers, DA’s, Judges and elected officials), loved the idea so much, they turbo-charged it by creating RICO, which allows them to put you in prison by just establishing a relationship between you and two or more people that may or may not have actually committed, or discussed committing a crime. They don’t have to actually establish the fact you conspired, just that you know and associate with conspirators. Josef Stalin would have loved the conspiracy method.
Think about it. With all the technology and intrusion of the 4th amendment coppers and feds have available to them, and given all the evidence of crooked cops, feds and prosecutors we have seen, if they cannot prove someone actually committed a crime, what are the chances that person might not have committed it?
It sound like the modern equivalent of getting Al Capone for tax evasion. Not murder or conspiracy. Just that the feds weren’t given their cut of his empire and that pissed them off. This is a novel idea that gets these fuckers off the streets. Also if watching lockup on MSNBC has taught me anything, other than its the only watchable show on that channel, its that those end up being life sentences because someone who gets 10-15 years will usually do something to add on to his sentence while in the clink. Way to think outside the box DA’s.
Swiftee, nice imitation of DG/Pen, although someone who doesn’t know you might actually think you are serious, well played though
Yeah well, without going into details, POD, I have some personal experience with how conspiracy works. Works so well, in fact, the feds like to use the threat of a RICO beef to get people to play ball with them.
Being as conservative as I am, people wonder why I’m so hard on the LE and judicial system. I’m not going into details on the interweb, but as Mitch can verify, I have legit insights into how cops and feds operate. It ain’t pretty; you wouldn’t like it; no true American would like it.
You don’t know me, POD; but with the exception of a 15 year old dee dub, I haven’t comitted crimes, and although I know and have known criminals, I don’t keep criminals around me as friends. But I’m telling you, if the government doesn’t approve of you or the people you do consider friends, that doesn’t matter.
These kinds of operations sound great; get the drive-by hood rats rounded up and locked away….win! Problem is, ANYONE can find themselves tangled up in a net cast wide.
As always, the Devil is in the details….but then you know that!
I’ve been confidently assured by Liberals that prisons already have too many Black and Brown inmates, based on a percentage-of-population disparate impact analysis, and therefore prison racial imbalance is proof of racial discrimination in the justice system.
Won’t this program exacerbate the racial imbalance problem?
If racial balance in prison is the only acceptable proof of judicial non-discrimination, and if we begin to send Black non-violent gun-conspiracy criminals to prison, which Black criminals will be released from prison to maintain the racial balance in the prison population? Are we trading rapist Willie Horton for his girlfriend, a straw gun buyer? Is that wise public policy?
I’m glad to hear of new emphasis on the Input side, but I’d like more details on the Output side of this equation.
Swiftee you make valid points, I have heard similar stories from people who are friends of mine but operate in completely different areas of society than I do. If a cop/prosecutor has it out for you for whatever reason and you can’t hire a good lawyer there’s a good chance you’ll end up screwed and copping to a plea deal and get some time in jail rather than risk a trial and 10-20 years.
You miss the point POD…they may not even have it in for you. It may be someone you know casually they are after, but if turning your life into a living nightmare gets them what they want, they won’t hesitate for a millisecond to do it. These conspiracy laws make it way too easy for them to do that.
People have no idea how crooked LE can be, especially the Feds.
Remember “The Firm”? As much fact as fiction in that film. Feds forcing a guy to chuck a career he busted his ass to have to help their case. That is SOP man.
Lying again? Chicago is suffering from the problem of outside guns.
And it is actually SAFER than 40 other cities, mostly in the lax gun states.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/11/chicagos-homicide-rate-rank-top-american-cities.html
Chicago’s Homicide Rate Does Not Rank Near the Top Among American Cities
Despite the familiar media refrain that Chicago is the nation’s murder capital, the “windy city” does not even qualify as one of the nation’s top 25 most dangerous cities for homicide. Yes, in sheer numbers Chicago leads the nation’s cities in murders, but its per capita murder rate is lower than forty other cities with populations above 40,000 residents. In 2011, the last year where records have been tabulated to compare cities, according to FBI statistics, Chicago, with a per capita murder rate of 15.9/per 100,000 residents, ranked behind over three dozen other American cities.
In 2011, the city’s murder rate was less than half that of the cities of New Orleans (57.6/per 100,00), Detroit (48.2) and St. Louis (35.3). Chicago’s homicide rate was also lower than such unremarkable cities as Ft. Myers, FL (31.7) Pine Bluff, AR (24.3), Dayton, OH (23.3) Rocky Mount, NC (20.6), Gulfport, MS (17.6) and Harrisburg, PA (16.1). Although Chicago has a reputation for being a deadly city, a resident’s odds of being murdered there in a given year are about 1 in 6250. By comparison, a New Orleans resident has roughly a 1 in 1750 chance of being killed in a homicide over a twelve month period. Thus, a New Orleans resident is more than three times as likely to become a murder victim in his hometown than a resident of Chicago.”
And please don’t pretend to care about people of color. No one buys that.
DG,
Every single word of this comment is BS.
If Chicago’s problem is “outside guns”, then why don’t the places “outside” have a murder problem?
Chicago’s murder rate as a city is relatively low – double that of Minneapolis, half that of Detroit. But crime rates for entire cities are fairly meaningless; they include the ENTIRE city. Sort of like Minneapolis – the city as a whole has a murder rate of 8/100K – five times that of the rest of the state, while the North Side has a murder rate of 100/100K. Chicago is the same; some of their dodgier south side neighborhoods have catastrophic murder rates.
So your cite is cherrypicked and of no value.
And please don’t pretend to care about people of color. No one buys that.
That’s big talk, coming from someone who lives in a lilywhite exurb, on a blog owned by someone who lives in the actuql city. You are not qualified to snark.
I mock you for trying.
DG – I’m going to need to see some dialog here, or I’ll go back to whiting you out forthwith.
DG – State murder figures are almost completely useless for comparing gun crime rates. Minnesota has VERY low crime, VERY high rates of gun ownership – but North Minneapolis has a third-world murder rate (and low rates of legal civilian gun ownership).
So what is Minnesota?
Illinois and Michigan have low crime rates – but Chicago and Detroit are shooting galleries.
Please answer.
Remember “The Firm”? As much fact as fiction in that film. Feds forcing a guy to chuck a career he busted his ass to have to help their case. That is SOP man.
Man, thats depressing. I need to go torture some child molesters to cheer me up. I’ve always believed that government is a necessary evil, but even I didn’t know how evil it can get. At the next meetup we need to talk dude, ever thought of writing a book? People who defend law enforcement to almost a fault (like me) need to hear about this shit. I’m sure your only one of many.
The conspiracy angle to prosecuting straw-buyers seems like something that anyone in favor of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals (that would be both the left and the right) can embrace. But as Swiftee points out, “Conspiracy” charges in the hands of a corrupt government can be much worse.
Consider the “John Doe” investigation in Wisconsin which was a giant fishing trip/harassment/suppressing fire campaign for cold-bloodedly political purposes. Need another example? Look at Turkey right now.
Need another example? Look at Turkey right now.
Or the US in 1918…only lasted two years but still chilling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
POD – interesting that Congress repealed the Sedition Act in December of 1920, but Eugene Debbs, who was sentenced under the Act, wasn’t pardoned by Pres. Wilson until December of ’21, some 54 weeks later – and then only at the suggestion of the Attorney General. I wonder how others who were sentenced fared after repeal?
Dog Gone will believe whatever she wants to believe. Apparently she’d prefer to accuse people she knows of lying and racism rather than venturing outside the “intellectual” grounds marked by gun controllers.
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My opinion of LE is that we need some coppers around to snatch all the blithering idiots up that rob liquor stores and shoot the neighborhoods up, but they are patently worthless against sophisticated crooks. I’m real concerned because those cowboys are getting their hands on equipment and using tactics that used to be restricted to the Feds, who used to have a modicum of professionalism, restraint and respect for the constitution. They are not up to the job and usually make a clusterfuck out of large, long term operations…remember the MN Gang Strike Task Force?
The Feds have the money and the people to go after arch criminals, but in my opinion, today, the harm they do to the general public (illegal survellience, illegal search and seizure, illegal data collection & etc) makes the cure worse than the disease.
NW- a dark part in our recent history people tend to ignore. Interesting fact 4 years later the KKK nearly (quite literally) took over the democratic party platform and key national, not just local positions. The most interesting parts of history, ironically, is shit school never teaches you, even at the university level.
The problem with using per capita statistics is they are so easily skewed.
Pretend the city of Two Spoons has 100 residents. One of them shoots her husband. That’s a per-capita murder rate of 1 per 100 which should make living in Two Spoons as dangerous as living in North Minneapolis. But would anybody fear to walk around the neighborhood at night in Two Spoons? How about North Minneapolis? The statistics don’t reflect the reality.
The purpose of the gun controllers in the United States is not to reduce deaths by gun fire. It is to impose their will on the people they consider their political opposition.
They do not express anger towards the people who committed the shootings. Instead they express hatred towards their political enemies, who are, by and large, not the people who use guns to kill people. Their thinking is unsound.
“Men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into” (attributed to Swift, Jonathan, not Swift, T.).
Great granpa Jon had a way with words I did not inherit, Bento.
My opinion of LE
You can take your opinion and… double it. Wholly concur.