The Real Chicago Pennant Race: Most Gun Violence in the Nation

Thus far this year, Chicago has outpaced both New York and Los Angeles in the break out category of jacked up shooting victims.

To understand just how out of whack the gun violence in Chicago is, first we have to take stock of the populations of these three major metropolitan areas:

• Population of New York City: 8.8 million
• Population of Los Angeles: 4.02 million
• Population of Chicago: 2.72 million

So, Chicago has about 1/4th the population of New York City and 2/3rds the population of Los Angeles. Given the disparity, the truly startling comparison in numbers of gun violence victims leaps out:

• Chicago has racked up 1900 shooting victims
• New York City less than 1000
• Los Angeles less than 1000

If Chicago keeps up the "good" work, by year's end it will have seen nearly 4000 shooting victims, including over 500 killed by gun violence. Think of it: 4000 shot in a population of 2.72 million. This statistic means that, if you live in Chicago, you're chances of being shot this year are BETTER than your chances of winning the Powerball! Obvious progressive solutions to gun violence are already in place in Chicago. Illinois has closely regulated the ability to buy and sell, possess, carry, and use firearms. Chicago adds to the onerous restrictions and has, widely agreed, the most restrictive regime of gun laws in the Nation. And the most severe gun crime problem. We could blame the naughty bullets. Environmentalists are good on that approach. Naughty lead, polluting ground waters. We could blame the powder. Again, environmentalists dislike the cordite smell and smoke of a discharge of a firearm. We could blame the naughty guns themselves. Worst offenders? "Assault weapons," of course, so named NOT because they are more powerful, more deadly, more accurate firearms. Instead, as with any sensible Democrat Party policy, "assault weapons" are that category of guns that "look dangerous." Naughty naughty assault weapons. Perhaps it's the fault of the silhouette target industry. After all, it must be the desensitizing effect of repeated practice firing, on targets that, all too often, bear a striking resemblance to a BLACK man. Naughty silhouette target manufacturers. One thing we must never, ever, do, is to fall victim to the pernicious doctrine of personal responsibility, so often touted by troglodyte fans of a policy throwback to the 18th century: the Second Amendment. No. Gun violence cannot be the fault of those who use guns as part of their trade in crime. Too many questions might arise about who the criminals are, where the criminals are, and why the criminals are. Those uncomfortable questions and their equally uncomfortable answers are mere distractions to the important task of blaming anything and everything except the right thing: bad people.

No Surprise Here: New York City Drops a Deuce on the First ... Amendment

So New York City has decided to loosen its belt, drops its trousers, and drop a big old steaming pile on the First Amendment. They're threatening huge fines for businesses that refer to individuals by pronouns other than "pronouns of preference."

Lest the gentle reader conclude that I am on a jaunt of mere hyperbole, I quote here from the official website of the Mayor of New York. The website page contains a press release announcing the Human Rights Commission's strengthened regulations.

NYC Commission on Human Rights Announces Strong Protections for City's Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Communities in Housing, Employment and Public Space

December 21, 2015 

Commission releases new guidance on gender identity and gender expression protections under New York City’s Human Rights Law to provide explicit examples to employers, landlords, business owners, and the general public on what the City considers discrimination under the lawGuidance protects rights of all New Yorkers by stating that enforcing dress codes, uniforms, and grooming standards that impose different requirements based on sex or gender may be a violation of the law 

NEW YORK—Today, the New York City Commission on Human Rights released new guidance that makes clear what constitutes gender identity and gender expression discrimination under the NYC Human Rights Law, making it one of the strongest in the nation in protecting the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Although discrimination based on gender identity and expression has been illegal under the City’s law since 2002, previous guidelines never articulated the range of violations of the law. Today’s guidance provides bold and explicit examples of violations, sending a clear message to employers, landlords, business owners, and the general public what the City considers to be discrimination under the law. The guidance also offers best practices on how stakeholders can comply with the law. 

“New York has always been a diverse and welcoming city and our laws are designed to protect every New Yorker, regardless of their gender identity,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Today’s new guidelines strengthen those laws by ensuring that every transgender and gender non-conforming person in New York receives the dignity and respect they deserve. I look forward to working with Commissioner Malalis and other stakeholders to continue enhancing protections for our city’s most vulnerable.” 

“Far too often, transgender and gender non-conforming individuals suffer discrimination, harassment, and violence on a scale many cannot imagine,” said Carmelyn P. Malalis, New York City Human Rights Commissioner. “New York City does not and will not tolerate discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender expression. Today’s guidance makes it abundantly clear what the City considers to be discrimination under the law and the Commission will continue to aggressively enforce protections to make that promise a reality. Every New Yorker deserves to live freely and safely, free from discrimination.” 

“In New York City we protect the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming people – in the workplace, in the supermarket, and on the street,” said Counsel to Mayor Maya Wiley. “Today’s bold new guidelines send a clear message that we will uphold the dignity of our residents, no matter their gender identity. The Commission under the Chair’s leadership is redoubling its commitment to protect every New Yorker from unlawful discrimination.” 

Today’s guidance lists several ways employers, landlords, and business owners could violate the Law on the basis of gender identity and expression, including: 

• Intentionally failing to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title.  For example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman “him” or “Mr.” when she has made it clear that she prefers female pronouns and a female title.

• Refusing to allow individuals to use single-sex facilities, such as bathrooms or locker rooms, and participate in single-sex programs, consistent with their gender identity. For example, barring a transgender woman from a women’s restroom out of concern that she will make others uncomfortable.

• Enforcing dress codes, uniforms, and grooming standards that impose different requirements based on sex or gender. For example, enforcing a policy that requires men to wear ties or women to wear skirts.

• Failing to providing employee health benefits that cover gender-affirming care or failing to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals undergoing gender transition, including medical appointments and recovery, where such reasonable accommodations are provided to other employees.  (Federal and New York laws already require certain types of insurance to cover medically-necessary transition-related care.) 

Violations of the New York City Human Rights Law could result in civil penalties of up to $125,000 for violations, and up to $250,000 for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct. There is no limit to the amount of compensatory damages the Commission may award to a victim of discrimination. 

So, say, for example, Bruce Jenner, who has flipped back and forth on his gender identity, walks into The Palm, sits at a table, and waits for a friend that will be joining him.

A short while later, some statist Nazi liberal walks in and asks the maitre de if Caitlyn Jenner is there. 

"Yes, he's seated in the corner booth." 

"Excuse me, what did you say?" 

"I said, he's seated in the corner booth." 

The statist, liberal Nazi says, "please let her know that I am slightly delayed," and walks out of the front door. 

Outside, the statist liberal Nazi pulls out her cell phone and dials 9-1-1. 

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" 

"I'm in front of the Palm, and there's a crime occurring inside as we speak!" 

"Is it a robbery, are the culprits armed?" 

"No! It's not a robbery and they're not armed!" 

"Is someone assaulting, beating up a patron or employee?" 

"NO! There're no assaults going on!" 

"What exactly is the nature of the emergency?" 

"The maitre de just referred to an occasionally transgendered person by a pronoun other than their stated 'pronoun of preference.'" 

"Caller, please stay on the line while I dispatch the SWAT team!" 

"Caller, are you still there?" 

"Yes, I am." 

"I've dispatched the SWAT Team, they will be there in less than 5 minutes, in the meantime, I want you to make sure that you are positioned safely away from the restaurant, we do like to make sure that our citizens minimize their risk of harm during an active talker situation!" 

Yes, it is just exactly that inane.

Yes, it is just exactly that stupid.

And, yes, it is just exactly that vilely grotesque that an American municipality believes it has the right to regulate the dialects and dialogues of our common, commercial, conversations.

It may be the Big Apple, but the Democrats are in that apple like a big fat juicy worm!

Compelled Speech: Using Government Force to Spread Partisan Messaging

Suppose you and a group of like-minded folk -- sympathetic to the plight of the long-termed unemployed -- develop a plan to assist willing job seekers.

So you organize a non-profit organization. You collect donations of clean, good quality apparel and shoes. You also collect used computers and printers, a copier, a fax machine, a cash register. You also collect donation of personal grooming products included new used razors, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, toothbrushes, toothpastes. You solicit volunteers to teach about office practices, counter sales, and work ethics. You find a small group of volunteer mentors that can assist with things like the process of getting a job and the things that allow an employee to stay employed and gain advancement.

The plan?

Your group raises sufficient funds to open a small set of offices, the mock up of a sales counter, and a mock up of an office setting including workstations and a copy room. You create a one-stop, volunteer-manned, source for assistance to those in employment crises. Once ready, you place advertisements on buses, commuter trains, a billboard or two, and in the yellow pages under employment services. Your ads invite those with critical unemployment or underemployment issues to receive counseling and assistance on alternatives to unemployment.

Your program offers free resume preparation, free basic office training, including computer use, and operation of office machines, and free retail sales training. Participants receive free training on job interview techniques, as well as assistance applying for work. Successful completion of the voluntary program is rewarded with two work appropriate outfits of clothing and shoes, and necessary personal toiletries.

True, neither you nor your fellow volunteers is a licensed human resources trainer, a licensed social worker, a licensed teacher. But the lack of such participating volunteers is not a reflection on your desire to have these types of folks working with your project. Rather, folks with those kinds of qualifications either are too busy with other activities, or, for some, they may consider programs like yours ineffective, or worse, harmful because they distract the unemployed from pursuing assistance through licensed, even state-operated, facilities.

The truth is, some of those folks are rather goaded by your program and its persistence. Their agitation only increases as small successes result in others borrowing your idea and spreading it to other cities in your State.

What to do? What to do? The answer for such naysayers is obvious. Bully you. Bully those that work with you. Bully you out of existence if they can do so.

In the early days of their opposition, they contact yellow pages publishers. Here their goal is to harangue them until, despite the income you provide by purchasing advertisements, the publisher complies with their demands. Initially, of course, they just assert that your ads are fraudulent misrepresentations because they are not actually employment service agencies. Ultimately, your opponents threaten the yellow pages publishers with consumer fraud litigation and prosecution until the yellow pages decides that its financial interests require it to move your ads to some other heading apart from where employment service agencies typically appear.

Still, your determination holds. You and your fellow volunteer redouble your efforts, and continue to enjoy the small successes of those who rejoin the work force.

Unhappy that your efforts have not been sufficiently stymied by their first line of attack, your opponents decide that they should enlist the State legislature to drive you out of existence. A notorious legislative friend of theirs conducts a "study" of your organization's work. The "study" challenges your techniques. They criticize the teaching methods, drawing, for example, as you do, a connection between employee reliability and employment longevity, and between employee drug-dependence and job loss. Offended that your gallant and dedicated group of volunteers engage in something they like to call "moralizing," your opponents cheer the "study" and get it noised about in news media.

As a onerous next straw, the state legislature adopts a law requiring unlicensed, voluntary employment assistance agencies to post a sign in the entrances to their offices and to include include in their advertisements a warning that "This Agency Does Not Employ Any Licensed Employment Counselors, Any Licensed Social Workers, Any Licensed Teachers."

Not that you ever claimed otherwise. Nor that you would refuse such volunteers if they supported your goals and would volunteer to provide services. Still, the Legislature believes that forcing you to say such things will result in some participants turning away at the door, keep others from even showing up, and p, eventually lead to programs such as yours withering on the vine.

You think that the foregoing is not a likely scenario?

If that's what you think, then you are, apparently, unfamiliar with previous efforts by Montgomery County and Baltimore, Maryland, and the City of New York, or the current effort of the California General Assembly to suppress the work of pregnancy resource centers. Just about everything in my proposed factual scenario matches the work of such centers. Volunteer organized, volunteer run. Volunteer participants. Free help. Free supplies. Free. Free. Free. All offered because these centers are being offered by folks who believe that there are, there have to be, humane and caring alternatives to abortion. More than just believing that such alternatives must exist, they have acted to create such alternatives and to reinforce them.

Well, the fact scenario I offer is different. It involves volunteers working with the unemployed. But Montgomery County, Baltimore, New York City, all decided that it is perfectly appropriate to target volunteer organizations that provide resources to pregnant women. Now California is preparing to follow in those ill-advised and Statist footsteps. And, California takes these steps knowing that the existing regulations in Montgomery County, Baltimore, and New York City have already been found to implicate fundamental rights of speech and association protected by the First Amendment.

Yet, the California General Assembly is on track to adopt such a law. Assembly Bill 775, if enacted, will require pregnancy resource services -- entirely voluntary, entirely free, and quite often organized around concepts of religious duty -- to post signs in their lobbies and to include messages in their advertising selected for them, imposed on them, by the State. Those signs and messages would warn potential users of their services that there is no doctor or other licensed medical personnel on the premises.

"Tapping out."

You might be familiar with this concept from the martial arts. When you are being pinned down and cannot free yourself, you can indicate surrender by rapidly slapping the mat, or your thigh, etc. many of us remember having to, or requiring others to cry, "uncle" as part of childhood rough-housing. For Statist pro-abortion types, the equivalent here is for pregnancy resource centers to close.

Oddly, such Statists are often the same ones that freak at the notion of American coins bearing the legend "In God We Trust," or at the use of the Bible in administering courtroom oaths. They are the same folks that salute attacks on such license plate mottoes as "Live Free or Die."

But Statists have no problem prying open the mouths of persons who hold deeply held religious beliefs about abortion and shoving government messages inside them with the knowledge that when they vomit the government message, those that they would assist on a voluntary, no-cost basis will flee. More than hubris. More than disregard for constitutional rights. These Statists are Luddite Speech Nazis, and should be shamed publicly as such.