The recent articles in the Sun-Times about auto switches on handguns and extended capacity ammo magazines were well-informed but misplaced.
Once again there was put forth a false belief that banning the magazines and/or the guns themselves would lower crime rates. It won’t.
Getting manufacturers on board to prevent illegal conversion to automatic fire is a good way to start. But until gun crime offenders are held accountable for their actions, nothing will change.
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According to the Chicago Police Department, officers have recovered 10,778 guns and have arrested 4,921 people for gun crimes so far this year. The question is, how many of these arrests resulted in prosecutions and then imprisonment? Because if people believe they won’t be prosecuted and locked up, they will continue to carry guns and shoot.
When someone commits a crime with no subsequent consequences, it will do nothing but allow similar and even more violent crimes to continue.
So here’s the story I want to see: How many people were arrested in Chicago for gun crimes and what were the results of those prosecutions? I hope the end of the story will be that most were locked up for their gun crimes and are doing time.
Robert Stasch, O’Hare
Gun violence and politics
Thank you for highlighting the horrific gun violence gripping some Chicago neighborhoods in your recent editorial. Your attention to this issue is indispensable and I hope it remains a focus of the paper’s reporting and opinion pages. You are right that we need to come together to confront and end the gun violence crisis in our city and our nation.
But let’s be clear what this means: supporting Democrats and working to defeat GOP candidates. The GOP is captive to the NRA and gun manufacturers and has created a fantasy world of fear, racism and violence among its supporters, with guns playing a central role. Any vote for a GOP candidate for any office is a vote in support of more gun deaths.
Please also remind your readers that while Chicago’s gun violence epidemic is severe and endlessly tragic, Chicago’s gun violence rates are lower than the rates in many other cities. Gun violence is not just a big city problem.
Our shared gun violence problem is one with a political solution: stop voting for and supporting the GOP and work to support and elect Democrats.
Barry Owen, Lakeview
This election, take it from the Brazilians
The Brazilians have shown us the way — the way out of chaos and hate and the way to a sustainable future for our planet. Yes it was close, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a flawed candidate, but good prevailed.
Hopefully, our country will also rise to the occasion. We must oust all of the election- denying, violence-encouraging candidates.
From the attempted coup on Jan. 6 to the gun toting men “guarding” drop boxes to the cruel remarks about Paul Pelosi — this degrading of political discourse must stop. The GOP has decided that the way to amassing political power is divisiveness and barbarism.
We can and must disabuse them of this political ethos by voting them out.
Carol Kraines, Deerfield
