Windy City – A Mayor Carries on the Tradition

By Gerard Valentino

It may surprise many people to learn that Chicago's nickname of "Windy City" doesn’t come from the winds that blow off Lake Michigan during the harsh winters, but rather from the windy debates that take place among the city’s political players. After the United States Supreme Court ruled that Washington D.C.'s outright gun ban was unconstitutional, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley did his best to remind people the true reason Chicago is known as the Windy City.

Daley’s wind and whining over the Court’s affirmation of the right to bear arms was a perfect example of his willingness to huff and bluff when he doesn’t get his way. His red-faced diatribe against the Supreme Court cast off any doubt that Daley cares more about his personal fiefdom than the unalienable rights of his bosses – the people.

In an act of grandstanding he claimed the Supreme Court ruling would lead to a return to the Old West - a common but long-since discredited theme of the anti-gunners who claim more guns will lead to a return to shoot-outs in the streets.

The problem with Daley’s rhetoric is Chicago is one of the deadliest cities in the nation, standing in stark contrast to cities with less crime where citizens are allowed to legally carry a gun for self defense. Such legal concealed carry laws shattered the anti-gun myth that guns equaled more crime. Once a few states had success with their concealed carry laws other parts of the country realized gun control laws didn’t equal safer streets and forced their legislatures to allow honest people to carry guns.

In Illinois, where Chicago is the major urban area, Daley has power out of all proportion to his position. So he has personally seen to it that people from Illinois remain at the will and whim of criminals. His decision to put the rights of his government above the rights of the people is the exact reason the Founders saw fit to include the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. The Founders knew that government would always act in its own best interest, and Mayor Daley is a prime example of how government corrupts.

Examples of Mayor Daley’s excessive use of governmental power are long and well documented, but his reaction to a seminal moment in the history of checking governmental aggression is telling.

At this time in our history we live under more government control and more government regulation than anytime in the past. That is often more concentrated at the municipal level where people like Daley can stay under the national radar and rule with impunity.

Using that power to push the people of Chicago to accept his revisionist history of guns in America is yet another abuse of his position. His actions as mayor are a primary reason that being able to keep and bear arms remains a hallowed right. If people like Daley, who believe they give rights to people through government instead of governing through the consent of the people, are allowed to act in their immoral way it will leave the Constitution in tatters.

If there is a singular villain when it comes to using governmental power at will, it is Mayor Dick Daley. Over the years he has even gone so far as to bulldoze the runways at Meigs Field, a small airport in Chicago, to fit his dream of what the city should look like. Someone who would act in such a reckless manner would think nothing of defying a court order to end the city’s misguided ban on guns.

Yet, Daley wins in a landslide each year because Chicagoans have few choices due to the unwillingness of good candidates to run for office. We could go even deeper into the city’s morass and discuss the cesspool that is Chicago politics, but there isn’t enough space in any single article to cover it.

Daley is supposed to rise above the fray when it comes to protecting the citizens yet he seems incapable of doing so, because in his mind he knows better than the people who vote him into office. That is the only possible explanation for his childish tantrum over the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Minutes after the Supreme Court struck down the Washington D.C. ban, a lawsuit was filed to overturn the Chicago’s version of a near total gun ban. As someone who grew up there, and knew what it was like to see criminals rule the city, it is like there is now hope that my homeland will be liberated after a long occupation. The people I knew who often lived in fear will hopefully soon have a chance to defend their life and home.

Others will no longer have to make a choice between self-defense and obeying an oppressive law that disarms them in the face of terrifying and barbaric crimes.

Clearly Daley’s priorities are his power first and the safety of his citizens farther down the list - that is, if concern for Chicago’s citizens appear on his list of priorities at all. Such a belief is based on the lack of objectivity he shows by ignoring the near limitless evidence that gun control fails as a viable option to reduce crime. Such evidence is so prevalent that to disagree is a clear sign of Daley’s intellectual dishonesty.

He is also happy to let a Supreme Court ruling give his government immunity when the police aren’t able to protect individual citizens from crime. However, he whines like a child when the same Court rules people have a right to keep a gun in their home to assure the self protection Daley can’t be compelled to provide.

The sad fact is, Dick Daley clings to gun control and is bitter over the failure of the anti-gun movement to secure a gun free America. When the Supreme Court ruling overturned the Washington D.C. handgun ban and put the Chicago ban in jeopardy, he threw a tantrum and looked even more like a fool than normal.

As you can imagine, for a fool of Daley’s stature, it wasn’t easy to act in such a ridiculous manner that his current rash of foolishness stands out from his past actions.

Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair and writes for the ValentinoChronicle.com.