Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Malum Prohibitum

The NY Times reports that Chicago's gun ordinance, as well as state gun laws, aren't successfully used to deter violent crime. HT Uncle.

“We do bypass our ordinance because the penalties are more serious under state laws,” Ms. Hoyle said. “But there’s this idea that we didn’t really enforce the ordinance, and that’s just not true. We prosecute people all the time.”

Those prosecutions, however, rarely result in convictions, according to the data from the clerk’s office. While the police have made 12,967 arrests since 2000, city attorneys have won just 2,068 convictions.

But these ineffective (and unconstitutional) gun laws have to be defended in court:

Charles Boesel, director of communications for the Joyce Foundation, said in a written statement that the city’s gun ordinance was worth defending regardless of how often it was enforced, because a decision to apply the Second Amendment to states and municipalities “could have profound implications for current and future gun policy in Chicago and nationwide.”

Good to know. Next time you defend a gun law on the basis that it's "for the kids," you'll just stipulate up front that they don't work, and you're just doing this because: (a) the Joyce Foundation pays you to, and (b) you think that people are better off dead and in compliance with nonsensical laws than being able to defend themselves, right?

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