There is a particular mindset in Chicago, it's a faith in collectivism and a distrust and dislike of individualism.
Individuals having guns - is not the answer (according to the mindset). In fact, they're part of the problem (according to the mindset). And the individuals who do insist on keeping guns have to be regulated and brought under society's control.
The flip side is true for holding criminals responsible for their own actions. Many people in Chicago who have this mindset do feel that society is responsible for everything, so if some young man decides to hold up a jewelry store - it's because society let him down. Society failed to educate him, society failed to provide a job for him.
This mindset seeks to shift responsibility away from the criminal onto vaugue concepts generally categorized as social problems and they consider guns a social problem. They want to both demonize and blame corporations like S&W, Ruger, Beretta, Glock and other gun manufacturers. They view guns the way that they view lead paint. It's a social ill that can be cured with the right government program aimed at it. But they view gun manufacturers like corporations that refuse to start making paint with no lead in it...
It may surprise people but many many Chicago politicians do not see violent gang members as the problem:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Ma...holy-Alliance/
Why don't they enforce existing gun laws?
I want to direct your attention to a drug bust last year:
http://thevoicenewspapers.blogspot.c...57934894374148
I'd like to point out that two of Koolaid's henchmen were A. Wilkerson and Lashawn Cain - both felons with previous convictions. They were charged with "Use of a Weapon by a Felon", The possible sentence for this crime? A paltry 2 to 4 years.
These guys have already decided to take part in a criminal enterprise that could get them 30 to 40 years in jail, so why would they care if they get 2 to 4 on a weapons charge that they serve concurrently anyway.
Also - read the comments of one of the posters:
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you cant judge them what if one of them just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time you dont know what these men are dealing with at home so who are you to talk about how many years they should get.there are so many crooked police out here these days who's to say they havent been set up and are giving 10 years so you need to think outside the box before you just judge someone. Remember there is only one real judge who is god and thats not you
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This kind of thinking is prevelant in inner-city Chicago. Very difficult for police to have to deal with those kinds of attitudes, but more importantly, the politicians for these districts aren't flown in from somewhere else, they come from these nieghborhoods where this kind of thinking is prevelant.
They basically want to shift responsibility for criminal behavior somewhere else, they don't want to hold criminals in their community responsible for their criminal behavior.
Every drug dealer that gets locked up has a grandmother, a half dozen aunties and dozens of cousins and a few uncles in the community. The politicians know that there is a lot of sympathy for that individual in the community and a lot of angst and resentment in general. It's easy to turn that dissatisfaction against corporations like S&W, Glock, Ruger, Beretta, the NRA, "rich people" et al...
It's a complicated issue, but its true that generally there aren't consequences for gun possession or gun use that
criminals are afraid of.