Say Anything Blog

This is simply amazing...

Chicago Sun Times - Nearly 24 people shot in less than 12 hours

Shots rang out across the city Saturday night and Sunday morning -- from the Far North Side to the Far South Side -- with preliminary reports of nearly two dozen people shot.

The overnight tally -- which is unofficial -- included two shootings on the same corner, a fatal shooting near the Taste of Chicago and several on the West Side, where detectives were swamped.

But wait! This can't be happening! Guns are supposed to be unConstitutionally banned in the city of Chicago! What is Chicago going to do?

abc7chicago.com - Chicago pairing surveillance cameras with gunshot recognition systems

June 26, 2005 -- The police are watching. And in Chicago, they're listening, too.

City officials are using new technology that recognizes the sound of a gunshot within a two-block radius, pinpoints the source, turns a surveillance camera toward the shooter and places a 911 call. Officials can then track the shooter and dispatch officers to the scene.

Welcome to crime-fighting in the 21st century.

"Instead of just having eyes, you have the advantage of both eyes and ears," said Bryan Baker, chief executive officer of Safety Dynamics in Oak Brook, which makes the systems.

After a successful pilot program, Chicago officials have installed 30 of the devices alongside video surveillance cameras in high-crime neighborhoods, with 12 more on the way, and dozens more to follow, Baker said.

Well that should make the law abiding residents of Chicago feel better. Unarmed and having Big Brother watch you for your protection. But wait! There's more!

In Chicago, police hope the gunshot detection systems will add momentum to a technology-fueled crackdown on guns and gang violence. The city in 2004 reduced its homicide rate to its lowest level since 1965 and police seized 10,000 guns -- successes that were in large part credited to a network of "pods," or remote-controlled cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feed video directly to squad-car laptops.

10,000 guns? I thought those were illegal. What's going on here? Is this what is meant when feel-good gun grabbers say that guns should be illegal "for the children"? Only criminals will have them and the law abiding citizens subjects will have to make do with counting on police cameras catching the crime in action? What kind of solutions are these?

"The crime rates in Chicago are the lowest in 40 years. The price of keeping the community safe far outweighs civil liberty issues," Bond said.

Oh. That's what they're thinking. Bond is a Chicago Office of Emergency Management spokesman. Apparently that position entails making excuses for taking away Constitutional freedoms.

By the way...if you want to know what cities have banned guns, just check Google with the right keywords.

mASS BACKWARDS has more.