"Licensed gun dealers are not the problem in our experience."

Let's say you rune Chicago. And, lets say the social scientists, criminologists and community activist come to you and say gang violence is going crazy - crazy enough in some neighborhoods to make Chicago the per-capita murder capital of the United States.

Do you face reality and try to solve the problem by, you know, going after the people committing murder and by getting government restrictions our of the way so good people can protect themselves? Or, do you use your position to blame the freedom enjoyed by people outside Chicago for your city's out-of-control murder rate?

If you chose the first method, then your name isn't Rahm Emanuel - or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Chicago's Mayor, Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, has said, "Chicago's violence problem is largely a gun problem", as if guns, all by themselves, have decided they don't much like the residents of some Chicago neighborhoods.

To fix Chicago, we need to shine the light of reason on what is occurring there.

First, start by putting the blame where it belongs. Thomas Ahern, public information officer for the Chicago Field Division, began by explaining that ATF’s special agents focus their investigations on armed violent offenders, career criminals, gun traffickers and gangs. The ATF also assists local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Basically, when a gun is found or seized from a criminal, the Chicago Police Department or other law enforcement agency asks the ATF to help trace the gun.

To accomplish this, the ATF has a criminal gun database system called the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). A police department sends them a gun’s make, model and serial number and possibly a spent casing and bullet from the gun. This information is entered in the database to see if the ATF can find matches with other crimes. ATF agents will also follow a guns’ trail to see where it was originally sold and who bought it. The ballistic information attained from the spent casings and bullets are also entered into the digital database so agents can search for matches and better assist with possible prosecutions. This is where police work runs into political spin. Chicago’s Mayor Emanuel and many other anti-gun politicians and activists blame the licensed firearm dealers around the city of Chicago, and even those as far away as Mississippi, for supplying guns to criminals in Chicago. As the ATF’s agents are the ones who work with gun dealers—Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs)—to make sure those gun dealers are complying with federal law, I asked if the ATF has evidence that indicates gun stores around Chicago are supplying gangs with guns. Ahern replied, “In our experience, licensed gun dealers are not the problem.”

Round up the usual suspects. To curb the rise in the homicide rate, Ahern also said agents “monitor Facebook accounts of known gang members. We’ve found that before shootings occur there are often things said on Facebook.” He also said there are about 130 known gangs in Chicago with 150,000 members, so I wondered how law enforcement could possibly find the time and resources to utilize this Orwellian tactic. All Ahern would say was “We do monitor Facebook.”

As Emanuel played politics, Chicago actually ranked dead last in federal enforcement of gun laws per capita, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data gathering and distribution organization at Syracuse University. Given this, why hasn’t the Obama administration been focusing on getting its attorneys in the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute those who buy guns for those who can’t pass a background check? Why haven’t they aggressively prosecuted each and every gang member found with an illegal gun? If President Barack Obama wants to enact executive actions related to gun violence, why doesn’t he direct his attorneys to act?

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