[Mises] It is now well known that the City of Chicago and Illinois overall have adopted stringent gun control laws over the years. Thus, the pro–gun control Giffords Center gives the state of Illinois a lofty "A-" on its "annual gun scorecard." Yet, somehow, shootings are surging in the city this year. Although crime in Chicago‐like in the nation overall‐is lower today than it was during the 1980s and 1990s, murders have been a perennial problem in Chicago for years. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported last week:
The 105 murders reported in July are a nearly 139% increase from the 44 reported in July 2019, according to police data released Saturday. The 406 shooting incidents last month were a 75% increase from the 232 reported in the same month-to-month comparison….Murders are up 51% from the same point last year, along with a 47% increase in shootings, police said.
So, how to explain the increase in homicides, especially in light of Chicago's stringent gun control? After all, the logic behind the arguments made by most gun control advocates is that areas with numerous government prohibitions on gun ownership will have less crime.
Well, the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, has a ready explanation: she claims people are bringing in guns from other parts of the country where it's much easier to buy guns. These guns are then supposedly taken to Chicago, where they are sold on the black market and used in shootings. Lightfoot claims: "We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons….That is hurting cities like Chicago,"
Lightfoot then takes her claims to the logical next step. As she states in a July 20 letter to Donald Trump, since Illinois and Chicago can't directly impose more gun control on neighboring states, she wants the national government to intervene and impose nationwide controls instead.
This is a common tactic among those who aren't content with destroying basic freedoms in their own jurisdictions. When neighboring jurisdictions allow "too much" freedom, prohibitionists demand that the federal government step in to impose uniform prohibitions on everyone. The idea here is that "open borders" between states allow persons and weapons (and drugs and other goods) to freely cross from one state to another. This freedom of movement, it is claimed, means that gun control can only work if there is a single nationwide policy.
WHY NEIGHBORING STATES AREN'T THE PROBLEM
But before we look at Lightfoot's latest call for national mandates, let's first back up a step and ask ourselves whether it's even plausible that Illinois's neighbors are the reason that homicides remain so high in Chicago.
On the surface, we can see how Lightfoot might be able to get away with making such a claim. As the Gifford Center's ranking system shows, Illinois is surrounded by states where it is far easier to buy a gun than in Illinois. Wisconsin, for example, receives a "C-" in the Giffords gun control rankings. Indiana does even "worse," with a ranking of "D-."
Some might see this and conclude that maybe Lightfoot is right, and that maybe Chicago is a "victim" of its neighbors such as Wisconsin.
But when we look more closely, we quickly find that the problem with Chicago clearly isn't guns.
According to crime data from the FBI, Chicago in 2018 had a homicide rate of 20.7 homicides per 100,000 population. The state of Illinois overall has a homicide rate of 6.9 per 100,000. As you might guess, a sizable portion of the homicides that occur in Illinois happen within the city limits of Chicago. In fact, if we remove the city from Illinois, "Illinois without Chicago" has a homicide rate of only 3.2 per 100,000....