It’s not people from outside Chicago committing the crimes, either. An easy out for the gun banners, if it were true, would be to simply prove that the villains are visitors from one of those “gun states.” But are Texans, Louisianans, and Oklahomans driving into Chicago to mug old ladies and rape young ones, to rob homes and kill shopkeepers, to start street fights and then finish them for good? I think not.

No, by an incredible majority, these are Chicagoans killing Chicagoans. Many of them are people who never even venture out of Chicago, people who stay within a few miles of home for most or even all of their lives. They live in Chicago’s government housing. They walk to Chicago’s government schools as children, and may eat two or even three meals there before returning home, or perhaps they’re bused to and fro in a government bus. Many don’t even notice the high cost of fuel that cripples the finances of the rest of us, because they don’t own cars; they ride a government-operated “city bus,” and don’t understand when fuel and manpower costs require the ticket prices of public transportation to go up.

They eat food purchased on a government credit card that’s delivered once a month by a government employee with a big satchel (we used to call what he delivered a “welfare check,” or “food stamps,” but now it’s just another piece of plastic). One of the few things they do that isn’t government-run is the rare occasion when they present that welfare card at a privately-owned grocery store or neighborhood convenience store. They often are born in a government hospital, live in public housing from birth to death, and are buried from the government morgue when the end finally comes, sometimes much too soon.