CHICAGO’S ‘GANG BOOK’ ATTACKS GUN RIGHTS AS TOOL AGAINST DRUG GANGS, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) today accused the Chicago Crime Commission of exploiting the activities of drug gangs to attack gun rights.

The Commission’s new 272-page “Gang Book” details Chicago’s drug gangs and offers several recommended strategies to fight these criminals. Incredibly, at the top of the list, is a recommendation to limit handgun sales to one per month, and impose a ban on .50-caliber long range sport-utility rifles.

“If this proves anything,” observed CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, “it’s that the anti-gun obsession rampant in the office of Mayor Richard Daley is now infecting the Crime Commission. What’s next? Will the city’s public health experts decide that banning handguns and ugly rifles is one way to cure alcoholism or cancer?

“Illinois already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country,” Waldron noted, “and a virtual ban on handguns for law-abiding citizens in Chicago. Yet, drug gangs thrive in the Windy City and its suburbs, and common street criminals don’t have any trouble arming themselves. Heaping more restrictions on honest gun owners is not going to stop these thugs, and the people who dreamed up this proposal know it.”

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said the implication that restrictive gun laws might somehow curtail drug activity by street gangs is ludicrous.

“According to the Chicago Sun-Times,” Gottlieb observed, “highly sophisticated gangs have figured out ways to infiltrate government agencies and even police and sheriff’s departments. Surely they have already proven they can get around restrictive gun laws, which ultimately only penalize law-abiding citizens.”

“Show me one crime in Illinois that a ban on the .50-caliber rifle would have prevented,” he challenged. “Show me one crime in which a drug gang used such a rifle, anywhere in the country. Identify one gang that would be put out of business by limiting the ability of a competitive shooter to acquire just one handgun per month.

“If the Commission thinks this is such a smart strategy,” Gottlieb said, “maybe they should limit drug dealers to one ounce of cocaine each month. Perhaps they should ban possession of syringes, after telling people with diabetes and other serious medical problems that their health is less important than making a political statement.”