Chicago's Mayor Daley still trying to disarm the entire state

Daley, not content with disarming only the citizens of his crime ridden sewer of a city, is once again pushing to inflict Chicago's draconian gun rights deprivation policies on the entire state. Predictably, the Chicago Sun-Times is goose stepping in lock-step with him.

The Sun-Times doesn't waste any time making clear where it stands on the issue of the Constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms--the editorial is titled "Legislature should take aim at assault weapon horrors." Now that's balanced journalism for you, isn't it? I realize that this is an editorial, and thus should not be held to the same standards of objectivity as one might expect of a news article, but certainly they could have come up with something less exploitively lurid than that.

In reading it, we are told that the statement that so-called "assault weapons" are very rarely used in violent crime is a lie. To illustrate this statement, they mention one death, in which the fatal bullet came from a semi-automatic copy of the AK-47 (actually, the editorial fails to mention that the firearm involved was a semi-automatic copy, and calls it an AK-47--which has a fully automatic fire capability, and is already fully illegal in Illinois, and tightly controlled everywhere else in the country). Apparently, one criminal thug's misuse of a type of firearm is enough to prove that no one should be permitted to own any similar firearm, the Constitution notwithstanding. Never mind that the weapon was bought in Indiana, therefore making an Illinois ban on such firearms irrelevant--such awkward facts are best ignored.

Daley's proposed restrictions include onerous state licensing for gun dealers, in addition to the already overly burdensome federal licensing requirements, a ban on private sales of firearms, so you can't sell your own gun without going through someone else--no doubt with a stiff transfer fee (and probably a tax for the state) involved, a law requiring guns to be locked up (and thus useless for self-defense) if people under the age of 18 are in the house, etc.

Even the Sun-Times had issues with one of King Richard's proposals. He wants to suspend the driver's licenses of people charged with certain gun offenses (and he seems to want to make thinking about guns a "gun crime").

We're not sure suspending or revoking a driver's license is an appropriate measure. Yes, that would hit some violators where it hurts. As Daley said, "People love their cars." They love shopping, too. Are we going to take away their credit cards? Besides, taking away driver's licenses might only lead to an increase in illegal -- and uninsured -- drivers on the roads. People who flash assault weapons are hardly going to be cowed by road regulations.

Those are good points. Another might be that if we actually want someone who gets in trouble with the law to reintegrate into society and become a productive citizen (we do want that, don't we?), it would seem that we want the person to be employable. An extended driver's license suspension would seem to have the opposite effect.

Daley's proposed laws have nothing to do with safety (except that by reducing availability of firearms to law-abiding citizens, the public is rendered helpless, and thus less safe), and everything to do with the government seizing a monopoly on force.