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After ten months of hearings and research, spending an unspecified amount of taxpayer money, The Cook County Gun Violence Task Force (GVTF) has released its final 52-page report. [Click here to read.] Here are its findings:

The Cook County Gun Violence Task Force (GVTF) examined research involving various law enforcement strategies and interventions that have been proven to be successful, evidence-based programs and practices–some already in use by the Chicago Police Dept. and other local law enforcement agencies.

Among the successful evidence-based law enforcement strategies and practices that have been implemented, studied, and ultimately determined to be highly successful, are programs and practices that include: hot-spot policing, focused deterrence policing, and community policing strategies.

Additionally, the GVTF found the need for greater data sharing between law enforcement agencies, as well as better practices during crime scene investigations. The GVTF also determined that rehabilitating the relationship between law enforcement agencies and communities is critically important to building stronger strategic partnerships.

In addition to this, restoring respect for law enforcement agencies and practices in the eyes of community members is equally important and necessary in order to help obtain pertinent firearm crime and violence information, much of which may be known among community members who are otherwise reluctant to share information with law enforcement agencies due to mistrust, miscommunication, and an overall fractured relationship within this partnership.

As our headline indicates, the report doesn’t make any mention of Chicago’s “revolving door” criminal justice system, which views firearms-related charges as little more than leverage for plea deals.

Given that gang bangers are responsible for all but a fraction of Chicago’s firearms-related injuries and homicides, it’s a deficiency which should stand center stage in the effort to reduce the Windy City’s historic levels of “gun violence.”

Needless to say, it’s PC preventing the GVTF from recommending jailing gang bangers. As revealed by the language in their recommendation that “law Enforcement . . . could use curfew ordinances and truancy outreach efforts to aid in reaching at-risk populations for follow-up contact efforts, while simultaneously preventing unnecessary and excessive punitive contact with the criminal justice system.”

Anyway, as you’d expect from a government report in a city controlled by a Democrat machine, the GVTF’s final doc recommends a plethora of anti-ballistic boondoggles. For example, the GVTF wants both a California-style “state-based crime-related violence research center” and a “Cook County Gun Violence Research Consortium” to study the problem the panel just spent ten months studying.

The GVTF also wants taxpayers to pony-up for a county-wide anti-gun violence marketing campaign “focused on the harmful effect(s) and economic impact(s) of crime-related violence and firearms.” (As opposed to non-crime-related violence?)

It would be “similar to previously successful awareness campaigns, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.), with universal themes, such as ‘Respect for Life’ or ‘Peace and Love’, and involve victim impact statements and influential public figures such as professional athletes and entertainers.”

And then there’s my pet peeve: cash payments to gang bangers not to bang. Or as the report puts it, the city should fund “successful evidence-based Cure Violence programs” employing “violence interrupters” with “demonstrated success in numerous jurisdictions across the country.”

If they mean political success, sure. Otherwise, as the Brits say, pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. It’s blood money, pure and simple.

And of course the report’s down with gun control. Amongst other things, it put its seal of approval of laws targeting “bad apple” gun dealers. I’ll leave you with one last recommendation, what I consider to be representational lunacy:

Introduce legislation amending the current Unlawful Use of a Weapon (UUW) provisions to include greater penalties, fines, and fees for violators, including suspension and/or revocation of a driver’s license or permit and mandatory towing and impoundment of motor vehicles with requisite fines and fees attached.

This change would discourage would-be offenders and guarantee violators receive appropriate punishments that would not only deter harmful practices, but would also generate revenue to support necessary law enforcement activities and other treatment initiatives related to the current gun violence crisis.

Just in case you didn’t think it’s all about the money, money, money.

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37 COMMENTS

  1. Restore respect? Respect is a precious commodity. Easier to lose than gain, and once lost, harder to gain back.

    As far as paying criminals not to commit crimes, no. Just no.

    • Aren’t we already paying the “mothers” thru our current welfare system??? Now THAT’S what I call “double-dipping”…..

    • “Paying bangers not to bang,” is akin to paying off Nagan…. If we just give Nagan what he wants, he won’t harm us sheep. We all know how that works out.

        • NRA donated money for cities like Richmond to work with the feds and have the feds prosecute federal gun law violations like felon in possession.

          I guess your attitude towards that depends on how you feel about federal gun laws, should the be enforced, repealed, or overturned as unconstitutional?

    • “Exile” was a fine demonstration of what policies will actually work, and as such was a good use of NRA efforts. For widespread use, however, VA (or other states) need to pay for their own criminal control, since their policies created the criminal class for the most part. States, in turn, need to force cities to pay for the control of their criminal class, since the cities are the source of their own problems, as well. IOW, Feds ought to force IL to clean up Chicago, and IL should tax Chicago to pay for it. The NRA has done its part brilliantly in the demonstration, no longer needs to be involved.

  6. Having lived in Chicago for 6 years and Cook County for 33years I can assure you nothing will change. Reelection don’tchknow…chaingangs,deathpenalty restored and enforcement of existing laws would solve most crime. Won’t happen and don’t hold your breath-you’ll die.

  7. Well, we can’t expect Democrats to imprison the party’s most important demographic, can we.

    And after the criminals, the next most important Democrat demographic is illegal aliens. That’s why Chicago is a so-called “sanctuary city.”

    Next on the list are municipal unions, who combine all the “virtues” of convicts and illegal aliens, with the ethics of scvmbag used car salesmen.

    Finally, there are the greedy little sheep who depend on Democrats for their handouts.

    The Democrat party is a garbage can of deplorables.

  8. I’m ultimately a believer in the founding principle that the states are the ultimate experiment in Democracy.

    Chicago runs Cook County. Cook County runs Illinois. This is an Illinois problem. If they can’t solve it internally the federal government’s only job is to protect neighboring states while Illinois burns.

  10. It’s always about the money. If their “solution” involves getting some of that money from the thugs, I have no objection. But I’m also not naive enough to think it will affect crime rates.

    But apparently, the task force did not blame Illinois’ shall-issue concealed carry law. They didn’t blame neighboring states for their “lax” gun laws. They didn’t call for magazine restrictions, UBCs, longer waiting periods or “bullet buttons.”

    Amazingly, they didn’t blame the 100 million+ lawful gun owners in the U.S. for their ongoing crisis.

    Which leaves me to ask (again), this story belongs on a gun blog – why?

    • Haven’t you been paying attention here. Blacks = bad
      Immigration = terrible
      Whites = “great again”

      • Typical progressive. You noticed Cook County put out a report that confronted none of the real dysfunctions of Metropolitan Chicago. You observed that others around the country are aware of the game, in which Dem pols constantly decry “gun violence” while promoting judges who do not severely punish those who commit gun crime.

        So what do you do, progressive Proud Chicano? You say “hey, it’s just all about racism. You guys are racist!” You’d say we’re sexist, too, except it’s so obviously the guys doing the shooting.

        Chicago gun crime is overwhelmingly african-american and, uh, chicano/latino crime. But we do not suppose the color of the perpetrators’ skin is the reason they shoot their rivals. They’re shooting their rivals for money and turf, because it pays. Keep letting them back on the street so quickly and they’ll keep thinking their violence is worth it.

  11. Just a reaffirmation that Democrats see and advocate what they have done for years.

    As for revolving door, one need only read a piece or two about the Hadiya Pendleton and Nykea Aldridge cases to see a great many such problems. And, these incidents are not isolated cases.

    Chicago Sun Times: “The reputed gang member accused of gunning down 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton last month was on the street even though he had been arrested three times in connection with break-ins and trespassing while on probation for a weapons conviction in recent months, the Tribune has learned.
    In two of those arrests, including one just 2 1/2 months ago, Cook County probation officials failed to notify prosecutors or the judge that Michael Ward had been arrested on the new misdemeanor charges and allegedly violated his probation.”

    So, what did Barry and Michelle have to say about this?
    “”Unfortunately what happened to Hadiya is not unique. It’s not unique to Chicago. It’s not unique to this country. Too many of our children are being taken away from us,” he said in calling for the “commonsense” reforms — comprehensive background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines — that he says most Americans embrace.”

    It is believed that Hadiya was killed with a snub nosed revolver.

    • By a repeat offender gangbanger without *any* background check, universal or otherwise, from a community he himself organized.

  12. And thus the report apparently fails to mention the real root cause: destruction of the core family and traditional values. Where core families and traditional values are in tact, there is no pervasive problem with violence of any sort.

    Of course stable core families and traditional values do not allow for people to be lazy, selfish, irresponsible, nor sexually promiscuous.

    Take your pick. You can be lazy, selfish, irresponsible, and sleep with anything that has a pulse … and find yourself in a Chicago situation. Or, you can work, take care of others when appropriate, be responsible, and sleep only with your spouse … and find yourself a rural Vermont situation.

    • Oh, so promiscuity inherently makes you selfish, lazy, and irresponsible, right? How? Explain to me how sexual activity is directly linked to work ethic, general sense of responsibility, and selfishness.

      • Red in CO,

        Try reading again. I never said that sexual promiscuity makes you selfish, lazy, and irresponsible. I said that when you (and many people around you) are selfish, lazy, irresponsible, and sexually promiscuous, you will find yourself in the same environment that plagues Chicago.

        And when you (and many people around you) are selfless, have a good work ethic, are responsible, and share your bedroom olympics only with your spouse, you will find yourself in the super-low crime environment that is rural Vermont.

        Truth … it’s a thing. So is reading comprehension.

        • Meh. I’m certain Vermont has fine folks. Bit it’s too cold, I’ll stick to TX, which should allow some promiscuity, at least.

  13. Democrats will always embrace bullshit that offers them a reason not to do anything useful. In this case it’s two words: “disparate impact”.

  14. “while simultaneously preventing unnecessary and excessive punitive contact with the criminal justice system.”

    Umm, excuse me? If you commit a crime, how is “contact with the criminal justice system” “unnecessary”? And if gang bangers are back in the street after committing serious felonies in a fewe months to just a couple of years, how is the criminal justice system “excessi8bvely punitive’? Are they calling for fewer prosecutions and lighter penalties? Are they suicidal?

  15. Jail is just part of life for too many criminals, so it’s not a deterrent. We need a new system of punishment that actually impacts people.

    Or maybe we should bring back some old ones. How about putting offenders in stocks where anyone can throw rotten fruit at them? That would impact public status, which means a lot more to a criminal than a vacation behind bars.

    • I vote just kill them. A properly civilized society must have a set of rules that the mere breaking of which are crimes too heinous to allow the perpetrator to continue to exist.

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