Why would any reasonable and prudent person risk their safety and that of their family to visit Murder City, USA, otherwise known as Chicago?

CHICAGO (STMW) – A man was killed and seven others were wounded in a drive-by shooting Saturday on Chicago’s West Side that the police said was gang-related.

A 72-year-old woman was among the wounded, according to the police, who said she was shot in an ankle and was not among the most seriously injured.

…
“It’s crazy,” said Rashauda Tolbert, a niece of the dead man. “Kids can’t play outside. People can’t sit on their porches.

“The shooting has been going on for days,” said Tolbert, who she was on her way to her security job when she heard about what happened and rushed back to her family. “Why we gotta be prisoners in our homes?”

Why do you have to be prisoners in your homes?

Because your elected officials do their best to keep good guys disarmed and helpless in the face of criminal violence, that’s why.

You elected them.  You live and die with the consequences of your decisions, folks.

Second City Cop was a little more cynical and wide-ranging in their laying blame at the feet of these Chicago residents who eschew getting involved:

“Why we gotta…”

“Gotta?” This is America. You don’t have to “gotta” unless you truly want to be free and enjoy all that this country has to offer:

•     Why do you “gotta” treat the streets as your own personal garbage dump?
•     Why do you “gotta” use the alleys as open air port-a-potties?
•     Why do you “gotta” have so many children out of wedlock? Can’t afford the wedding? How about a stable two-parent household? Or even an involved two parents living apart?
•     Why do you “gotta” adhere to the “no snitching” culture that aids and abets not only the dope dealers, but the shooters that got a 72-year-old woman, a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old child this weekend?
•     Why do you “gotta” have a 5-year-old out at midnight where he manages to catch a bullet?
•     Why do you “gotta” have four and five generations living in squalor in the same roach-infested government housing, never paying the rent, the electric, or the phone bills, while wearing the latest $300 gym shoes and bling?
•     Why do you “gotta” condone teenage girls hanging out with “men” in their late 20’s, even 30’s and 40’s and not acting surprised at what follows?
•     Why do you “gotta” support rappers degrading girls and women and then wonder at the massive amount of domestic violence that pervades the community?
•     Why do you “gotta” demean those who attempt to use education as a way to get out of the never ending spiral of despair?
•     Why do you “gotta” call the police to solve every single disagreement and argument that arises from the lack of coping skills, a shortcoming that is a direct result of everything we’ve listed above?
•     Why do you “gotta” listen to race baiters like Jackson, Sharpton, Meeks, Farakhan, Phleger, Brooks, and even Obama, who blame everyone and everything – except the face looking back in the mirror. A face that shouldn’t be asking, “Why we gotta…” and instead, should be saying, “Maybe we oughta….” Then maybe something will be solved.

People in Indianapolis aren’t prisoners in their own homes, and with a population nearly half that of Chicago, they aren’t that much different than the Windy City — aside from the fact guns are readily accessible for good people and bad guys know good people are often armed.

In Chicago though, when thugs have a bad day, they take it out on innocent people.

AURORA (CBS)  — Nothing seemed out of the ordinary early Thursday when an Aurora cab driver took the call to pick up a man at a Naperville gas station…

The passenger asked him to pull over, and then reached around from behind with knife, plunging it into the driver’s neck. He didn’t demand money, instead, he told the driver he “had a bad day.”

Thugs pull that in places like Indianapolis and they may as well as suck-start somebody’s Glock, because they’re going to be DRT – as in “Dead Right There”.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times attributes the violence to, among other things, access to guns.  In their lame headline, “Gangs, weather, access to guns, reluctant witnesses drive holiday weekend bloodshed”, they nibble around the edges, but blame “access to guns” as a primary reason for the violence.

Maybe someone didn’t tell them about Chicago’s strict laws against gun possession and obstacles to legal ownership?

Perhaps they pride themselves on being low-information journalists.

Oh, and the final body count?

12 dead, 74 shot!

Chicago (Tribune) – … Sunday’s attacks brought to at least 74 the number of people shot since Wednesday afternoon in Chicago, with 12 of those victims killed.

What does it say when more people are killed in Chicago on a holiday weekend than die in the crash of a jumbo airliner in San Francisco?