Mayor Rahm Emanuel gathered elected officials, community leaders and residents at St. Sabina Church on Chicago’s Southside on Friday to continue calling for stronger gun regulations after the Public Health Committee of the Illinois Senate passed restrictions on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“In order to protect our children, our families and our communities, we need common-sense laws that provide the residents of our cities with the safety they deserve,” said Mayor Emanuel. “I commend the members of the Public Health Committee of the Illinois Senate for approving gun-control legislation that restricts high-capacity magazines and assault weapons designed for battlefields and not America’s streets.”
Mayor Emanuel is encouraging state legislators to support the assault weapons ban and the restrictions on high-capacity magazines, and to build on these reforms by supporting a requirement that gun owners report when their firearm is lost, stolen or transferred.
“We cannot allow the proliferation of guns and the damage they cause in our communities to continue. We must take swift action to stop this violence, especially to the straw purchasing that allows criminals to obtain weapons,” Mayor Emanuel said.
The Public Health Committee of the Illinois Senate approved "gun control" that restricts "high-capacity magazines and assault weapons." Mayor Emanuel said in a statement that these weapons are "for battlefields and not America’s streets. In order to protect our children, our families and our communities, we need common-sense laws that provide the residents of our cities with the safety they deserve."
Mayor Emanuel thanked Public Health Committee Chairman Senator Chairman William Delgado and singled out "Sen. Tony Munoz and Sen. Dan Kotowski for their leadership. I urge the full Senate to follow the committee's lead and quickly pass this important legislation."
Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois also issued a statement, commending the Public Health Committee for passage of the measures. "Following the horrific Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre that left 12 dead, I proposed a statewide ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines to best protect the people of Illinois. As I have repeatedly made clear, there is no place in Illinois for weapons designed to rapidly fire at human targets at close range. Today's vote is a good sign that we are making progress as we continue to build a majority in the General Assembly."
The City of Chicago has a handgun registration requirement, but according to a recent study by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, the majority of illegal handguns arrive in Chicago from elsewhere in the state. From 2005-2010, 56 percent of short-time-to-crime guns recovered at Chicago crime scenes were traced back to sources within the State of Illinois, but outside of Chicago.
According to the Chicago Police Department, many straw purchases are done within Cook
County. “We cannot continue to allow easy access to guns to contribute to a culture of violence in Chicago. We need our leaders to demonstrate their courage by adopting common sense gun laws that will help protect our young people from violence,” said Father Michael Pfleger, Pastor of St. Sabina Church.
The Chicago Police Department confiscated almost 7,500 guns, including nearly 300 assault weapons, in 2012, which is nine times as many guns as New York City and three times as many as Los Angeles. “Stopping the flow of guns to our communities is an important step in protecting our children from senseless violence. No parent should have to suffer the loss of their child, and our neighborhoods, our communities and our city deteriorates with the loss of every young person to violence,” said Pamela Montgomery-Bosley, co-founder and board member of Purpose Over Pain.
Send John Presta an email and your story ideas or suggestions, johnpresta@att.net.
John is the author of an award-winning book, the 2010 Winner of the USA National Best Book award for African-American studies, published by The Elevator Group Mr. and Mrs. Grassroots: How Barack Obama, Two Bookstore Owners, and 300 Volunteers did it. Also available an eBook on Amazon. John is also a member of the Society of Midland Authors and is a book reviewer of political books for the New York Journal of Books
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