Firearms shops soon to come to Chgo?

I’m sure some would call it a quirk of Chicago that, despite the reputation the ideologues want to tag on the city as a haven for violence, one can’t actually purchase a pistol or any other kind of firearm within the city limits.

EMANUEL: He's angry. What will he do about it?

Not that it is impossible for a Chicago resident to obtain a firearm. Gun dealers tend to set up shop in many of the communities that share borders with the city.

AND POLICE HAVE said that it is not unusual in a gun-related crime in the city for the weapon itself to turn out to have been legally purchased somewhere in Indiana.

Not that it means our city’s criminal element is driving to places like Hammond and Gary to buy weapons at firearms shops or sporting goods stores that stock weapons as well.

Invariably, it turns out the legally-purchased weapon gets resold a time or two, and somewhere in the chain of people someone gets lax in determining whether the purchaser is the type of individual who ought to have a firearm.

That is where the emphasis of law enforcement ought to be placed – on punishing those gun-nut types with a carefree attitude about where the weapons are going.

SO IT IS why I’m not getting all worked up over the federal judge’s ruling on Monday that said the city ordinances that prohibit any firearms dealer from legally operating a store in Chicago are flawed.

There won’t be any immediate issuing of licenses to such businesses, since Mayor Rahm Emanuel made it clear his attorneys are studying the issue this week.

As it is, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang put a stay on his own order, preventing it from being enforced in any way until Monday.

Presuming that city government files a lawsuit to challenge Chang’s ruling, it will be a long time before anything changes in terms of the day-to-day practices of the city.

ALTHOUGH CONSIDERING THAT the courts in recent years (taking their lead from a federal Supreme Court that has its own ideological biases) have been inclined to nit-pick at Chicago’s attempts of recent decades to restrict firearms ownership, perhaps Chang’s ruling isn’t the least bit surprising.

We may someday wind up with little storefront gun shops in the Chicago neighborhoods (even though my own opinion about such shops is similar to what I think of casinos – only communities that are incapable of attracting anything else in the way of economic development go for them).

Perhaps we ought to be focusing on the restriction end of such businesses – similar to how the anti-abortion crowd focuses less on trying to overturn “Roe vs. Wade” (the Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state laws that tried to call abortion a criminal act instead of a medical procedure) and more on imposing so many restrictions that it becomes next to impossible for some women to actually obtain an abortion.

If there is anything about the Chang ruling that concerns me, it is the part that says it is legal for people to transfer ownership of a firearm as a gift or through a private sale – so long as the recipient is 18 or older and has a Firearm Owners Identification card.

THAT IS THE part of the process where the problems usually arise, and where the criminal element winds up obtaining the weapons they use to try to terrorize the populace – because without them, they really are just dumb thugs.

The answer to that problem ought to be a crackdown by THE LAW!

It certainly isn’t the arming of everyone else so that these so-called reputable citizens can have an opportunity to shoot someone they feel is intimidating to themselves.

Because in the end, a crook is just a crook who wants money or something else of value. The person with the itchy trigger finger is the one who ought truly to be feared (and restricted) by our society.

  -30-

How important is your employment? Did you bear the brunt of the cold?

I was among the masses Monday, or so it seems. I got to work from home because of the frigid weather.


Frosty view of the neighborhood

I didn’t venture any farther than half-a-block from my humble abode, and even that was just for a few minutes so I could take a few photographs to document the conditions – which are hard to illustrate since the snowfall is past and the story of the day on Monday was the temperature that you felt – not saw!

NOW I DO some work for a daily newspaper. Although it turned out that all of the assignments I thought I was going to chase were for events that wound up being cancelled due to the cold.

I spent a significant chunk of my day working the telephone and talking to an assortment of police and fire officials, Public Works crews and various elected officials to figure out how people were reacting.

The consensus seems to be that people were so thoroughly warned about the weather that they were prepared. And in many cases, they didn’t even bother to go to work.

Which means most of those who were working were literally those police officers and firefighters who HAD to be on hand in the event of an emergency. That, and the Public Works crews who were on call throughout the weekend in order to keep streets passable.

ALTHOUGH THOSE WHO got a glimpse of the part of the Chicago area that lies on the other side of the Illinois-Indiana border got to see images of impassable roads, and word that the commuter trains to the Loop didn’t run at all.

Some of us worked Monday, and some of us didn’t.

My snow-encrusted car that didn't run properly before

Technically, I did some work. Although I was fortunate to be able to do it from within the confines of my humble abode.

As opposed to my brother, Chris, who works at a Home Depot store and wound up having to put in an eight-hour shift as the store was open for business.

 

Neighbors won't picnic anytime soon

I’D LIKE TO think that people interested in a home remodeling project could have put it off.

I wonder how much of the business was from people who didn’t think ahead of time and suddenly found themselves in need of a specific tool in order to make an emergency repair that otherwise would have caused their lives to be unbearable.

And for what it's worth, my brother did wind up having to spent part of his working day outdoors. "It's cold as (a certain municipality in Michigan that some also equate with eternal damnation) out here," is what he told me when I spoke to him briefly in mid-day.

Somebody lost a glove!

Although I do know he has said in the past that the store itself is kept so warm (even in the summer months) that he can build up a sweat in winter-time when he works indoors.

MY SYMPATHIES GO out to those who got stuck having to work outside, and where no amount of tuques, face masks, heavy mittens or gloves, along with layers of sweatshirts underneath a down jacket will keep them warm.

Particularly if their employment duties aren’t so much to keep us safe as to keep some chain corporation’s financial bottom line up to a certain level deemed necessary for a CEO somewhere to have an adequate profit WITHOUT having to lay off more people.

Yes, the chill of an Arctic-type winter (supposedly, the wind chill factor made Monday feel like a 45-below day) has put me in a sarcastic mood. I’d probably be even worse if I had actually had to deal with a chill in my fingers as I tried to take notes of the sayings of our U.S. senators – who were supposed to gather in the Pullman neighborhood to breathe life into now-former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s desire to turn the one-time railcar factory and surrounding neighborhood into a national park.

Envision the hazards when those icicles start falling

 

But they cancelled (as did a few other assignments), and I got to stay indoors (and yes, I literally am wearing a particularly comfortable pair of pajamas as I write this commentary).

MY SYMPATHIES EXTEND to those who had to work regardless of the weather conditions.

Except for, perhaps, the U.S. Postal Service worker who was supposed to make the trip to my residence on Monday. As far as I can tell, he never showed up -- despite all the rhetoric about "Neither snow nor rain nor heat" keeping postal workers "from their appointed rounds."

Which was an issue for me, since there literally was supposed to be a "check in the mail" that I hoped to get Monday.

  -30-

We got a warning; will we follow it?

All the winter weather forecasts we have received in recent days have made me think back to July of 1995 – specifically that five-day period in mid-month when the weather became so hot that the number of heat-related fatalities shot up significantly.

 

What I remember of that heat wave was one particular pundit describing it as an anomaly in which – for a few days – weather conditions shifted to the point where Chicago became Saudi Arabia.

AS IN FOR those days, we had the kind of heat they routinely experience in the deserts of the Middle East. There, the locals know how to cope with it.

In Chicago, we were caught off guard – resulting in the 485 official fatalities due to the heat (and the city Health Department estimate that some 739 people in excess of the norm had died).

Now what does any of this have to do with the extreme cold we’re expected to suffer through in coming days?

For all I know, some people are looking at the prospect of a “20-below” temperature (as in Fahrenheit, not Celsius) and wishing they could have a blast of 100-degree-plus heat. The Chicago Teachers Union on Sunday was already demanding that the Chicago Public Schools be closed, and schools officials complied late in the afternoon.

BUT MY POINT is that we’re getting a jolt of weather that usually isn’t typical for this part of Planet Earth. I’ve seen the term “Chi-beria” used to describe what Chicago will experience (as in Siberia), while others are saying we will have temperatures lower than the Arctic Circle.

As in the North Pole.

 

 

No wonder Santa Claus makes a point of rushing around the world to give away presents. He’s freezing his red-clad butt off the rest of the year.

We’re going to be cold. We’re being advised to stay indoors as much as possible. A brief trip to the supermarket on Saturday saw me having to deal with endless lines – even though I was just trying to use the “express” to pick up a couple of items.

 

 

I WASN’T ALONE in wanting to NOT have to make the trip (which in my case can be as short as a one-block walk to a Jewel, longer if I choose to shop at a different store) in the potential chill of 10-below.

Let’s only hope that people have not only been paying attention to these advance reports, but that they’re taking them seriously.

I’m sure we’ll have a few people who are convinced that the weather reports are a whole lot of hype, and will say to themselves, “How cold could it actually get?” If too many people take that kind of attitude, that is when we have the potential for the body count to increase.

Although I’ll be willing to concede the one significant difference between the two situations.

MUCH OF THE body count in 1995 was among elderly people who lived “shut-in” type lives who should have got out of their inadequately-cooled homes and found some place cooler to pass the time.

The coming days will be a case where we all will be encouraged to live the “shut-in” lifestyle. So long as we don’t get some sort of outage that causes people to lose heat, we should be capable of coping.

Except that in severe weather, there’s always the possibility of an outage – and the fact that the inclement weather will interfere with emergency crew efforts to rectify the problem.

The real question might be whether we experience a record low – bottoming, so to speak, the conditions of Jan. 20, 1985. That was when a 27-below temperature combined with 25 mile-per-hour winds for a wind chill of 77-below.

WE GOT THROUGH that blast (also from the Arctic that swept its way across the nation, just like what’s happening this week). I’m sure we’ll make it through this one too -- and hopefully without any record-setting for fatalities.

 

 

Even if it means we’re going to have to put up with exaggerated stories for decades to come from people feeling the need to prove their fortitude by telling us of how they braved the cold of the coming days.

  -30-

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Take your pick. It's thoughts of "Summertime" coming in just a few months that will get me through the next few days! Or, you can consider Gov. Pat Quinn's advice for coping with the next few days.

I remember when “Big Hurt” was nuthin’ compared to Sammy Sosa

I’m going to get some amusement come Wednesday if it turns out that one-time Chicago White Sox hitter Frank Thomas winds up getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, while everybody’s favorite baseball clown Sammy Sosa winds up becoming ineligible for future consideration.

Now I’m not claiming to have any real knowledge of how the vote will turn out.

ONLY THAT IT seems Thomas, along with one-time Atlanta Braves star pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, appear to be the candidates who are getting solid support – enough to make it above the 75 percent standard required for Hall induction.

There are other ballplayers who seem to get strong support from select sportswriters, but not enough to gain induction this year.

Although it also seems that on the bottom end, there are some ballplayers getting so few votes that they may be knocked off the ballot for future-year consideration.

Those include Sosa, the one-time Chicago Cubs outfielder who once was the guy who (along with Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals) “saved” baseball in 1998 when both of them managed to hit more than 60 home runs that season! Rejuvenating interest in a sport that supposedly people had given up on because of bitterness from the ’94 strike.

THE ONE THAT now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought an end to when she ruled that it was the baseball owners that had acted improperly in their labor negotiations with the players union.

But that’s a commentary for another time.

What I recall of that era was that it was a period (roughly 1998-2002) when Sosa and his clown act on-and-off the field amused fans and resulted in a jolt in Chicago Cubs attendance, while White Sox attendance fell to the level of any other mediocre ball club that couldn’t win on the field.

It didn’t really help that Thomas’ run of big hitting and Most Valuable Player awards that his career will be remembered for pretty much came to an end in 1997.

IT MADE IT too easy for the more casual of baseball fans to think that Sosa was “the Man!” and Thomas was just a crybaby who complained of foot pains.

Of course, we later learned that Thomas had a huge bone spur in his heel that would have prevented most people from even walking – let alone trying to be an athlete.

There were all those home runs that Sosa hit (more than 60 each season in 1998, 1999 and 2001), and the people who tried claiming there was something fishy about Sammy suddenly becoming a star some 10 seasons after he first played in the major leagues?

They were just written off as bitter kill-joys. Either that, or sour-pussed Sox fans! Now, everybody screams "STEROIDS!!!!!" when they think of Sammy.

NOW TO SEE that Thomas is being considered a likely candidate for the Hall of Fame on his first try, while Sosa (in his second time on the ballot) may get knocked off altogether?

What a difference a day (or 16 years) makes!

Although I have to admit to a pet peeve. For one thing, it seems there are some Hall of Fame voters who think that McGwire is entitled to future Hall of Fame consideration, while Sosa is not.

In all honesty, the two are so tied together in my mind that I wonder if some people have an ethnic hang-up against the one-time Dominican beisbol star, as opposed to the Southern California boy and one-time U.S. Olympic baseball player. I can see voting to approve both, or reject both. But one, and not the other? I don't get it.

ALTHOUGH I’M ALSO going to find some amusement from the idea that Maddux and Glavine will be in the Hall of Fame, while McGwire is not.

One of the iconic commercials promoting baseball in that era was that whole “Chicks Dig the Long Ball” concept – remember Glavine and Maddux grousing that Hollywood hottie Heather Locklear was more interested in hanging out with McGwire than them?

 

 

Wednesday’s announcement could wind up being a pair of “last laughs” for Maddux/Glavine and Thomas fans, particularly when/if they make the trip to Cooperstown, N.Y., in July for induction ceremonies while ballplayers such as Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds remain baseball pariahs.

Then, there will be Cubs fans who shift into rhetorical combat mode by arguing that Maddux deserves to be remembered more for his short stints on the North Side – rather than his many seasons of quality down in Atlanta. Baseball always creates something for its fans to argue about – particularly while we’re enduring sub-zero Arctic temperatures waiting for the new season to begin.

  -30-

Grateful to be cooped up indoors (for a change) on this messiest of New Year’s

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we’ve got no place to go

Let it snow? Let it snow! Let it snow!                                    

  -0-

Whodathunk the New Year holiday season would have its own song. Even if it’s technically an appropriation of a Christmas holiday song.

My guide for coping with winter storm Hercules

For that first line from “Let it snow” was what came to my mind when I looked out the window to see the snowfall that has been falling off-and-on since Tuesday night.

AND I AM fortunate to be in a part of the Chicago metropolitan area that didn’t get hit with nearly a foot of snow. It has been just a couple of inches for me.

Reading and seeing the news reports of nearly a foot of snow in some parts of metro Chicago (which technically is a part of the “winter storm Hercules” that is sweeping itself this week across the northern part of the nation) made me feel grateful.

As was the fact that I am reduced these days to sporadic employment – often done from home.

I didn’t have to endure the commute to work that likely would have made me ridiculously late, and would have caused me to have to endure a rant from some boss who would want to blame everybody around him for inclement weather.

FOR THOSE OF you who had to put up with someone so nonsensical, I feel for you.

I wish I could say I spent the day watching this...

Although to be technical, I didn’t spend my Thursday cuddled up in front of a fire. Part of the day I spent in front of a laptop computer grinding out copy – including this very commentary you’re reading now.

I did have a television going for part of the day, tuned part of the day to The Weather Channel – where Stephanie Abrams, among others, convinced me that I was not alone in coping with heavy snowfall that will turn by week’s end to sub-zero-degree temperatures.

... instead of this

I also must confess to watching portions of a pair of cheesy films – “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Detroit Rock City,” which not only make me wish it were possible to buy back that portion of time in my life so I could use it more wisely but also makes me wonder if actors Kathleen Turner and Edward Furlong wish they could somehow erase those films from being a drag on their careers.

ALTHOUGH IF IT turns out that watching a part of two bad films was the low part of my Thursday, then I shouldn’t complain. It wasn’t any worse than the guy who was doing an awful “Harry Caray” impersonation on MLB-TV.

Besides, I’m sure there are people out there who had miserable days; problems aggravated all the more by the inclement weather.

I was fortunate enough to be able to use a miserable day to add to a general tone of relaxation in the final days before we all have to get back to work following New Year’s Day. And the leftover ham and potato salad was actually an enjoyable weather shut-in meal.

Which because the holiday came near the beginning of a week allows the most unadventurous of us to turn Christmas and New Year’s into a nearly two-week-long period of slothness.

Leftover ham and potato salad; the shut-in meal!

I ONLY HOPE they were relaxed enough that they were able to pull out the shovel on Thursday and clear their own sidewalks and other areas around their house – without thinking that such actions entitle them to a parking space in front of their house, even though the streets are public property!

Because aside from the nonsense concept of “dibs,” the last thing we need is more people who think they don’t have to do anything because Mother Nature and the Sun will eventually make the slop of snowfall melt away.

  -30-

Chicago homicides at a low in my life; so much for cheap partisan rhetoric

I’ve made it clear before that I’m not among those all hyped up about the rising homicide rate in Chicago – which in 2012 did experience a jolt upward but was far from being anywhere close to a record for urban violence.

So the fact that things seem to have returned to the norm in the now-completed year of 2013 ought to be seen as a plus. The New York Times on Wednesday reported there were 417 homicides in Chicago through Monday.

THERE WERE A couple more on Tuesday, with the final incident in 2013 resulting in a human death being a shooting outside of a store in the Englewood neighborhood. Although the rule of thumb for putting together a homicide tally for the year is that it matters when an incident occurs – not when the person is pronounced dead.

Which means by the end of the week, there could be a few more people added onto the list About 420 slayings for 2013 is the most accurate figure that we can give now. It's an educated guess.

Which, according to the Chicago Tribune means this year will probably go down in the books as being the lowest homicide total since 1965 – the year of my birth.

I’m pushing close to 50 (another year and a half) and this could turn out to be the safest the city has ever been.

ALL THAT MAY well be true. But I’m also realistic enough to know that none of this statistical spin means anything if you’re of the parts of Chicago that are getting hit with the bulk of this violent activity.

And if you’re of a family whose members included one of the approximately 420 deceased, I’m sure it doesn’t matter at all that this is a low – or that 2012 with its 503 homicides was an aberration!

Or that we used to have 900-plus homicides per year in the city back in the late 1980s-early 1990s. It is an era I particularly remember because it is when I regularly wrote about cop-shop stuff for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago. There are still intersections across the city that, in my mind, jolt memories of 26-year-old slayings that too many others have long forgotten.

Englewood ought to warrant our attention

It may well be appropriate that the final violent incident of 2013 occurred around 71^st Street and Vincennes Avenue outside of one of those neighborhood markets that no one outside of Englewood would ever think of shopping at.

MANY OF US wouldn’t even pay attention to this particular incident because of the neighborhood it occurred in.

And those with Englewood ties have probably become so immune to the violence that the masses don’t give a thought to that the only reason the death of 26-year-old Vincent Rogers will be noted was because it occurred with about three-and-a-half hours before Janet Davies could mark the end of 2013 along State Street.

It should also be noted that the urban violence continues even though ’13 is through. The Chicago Tribune reported about shootings in the Fernwood and Park Manor neighborhoods on the South Side.

Four were wounded – although in those cases, the gunmen were Chicago Police patrolmen responding to incidents of shots fired in the neighborhoods.

SO AS WE move forward into ’14 (the holiday’s over – even though I realize there are those who think they’re entitled to do nothing on the job until Monday), we should give a thought about the degree to which we accept violent crimes as part of the status quo.

We as a whole have to take a harsher attitude toward the situation, and not ignore it just because it might not impact our specific home neighborhood.

But more important, going on and on about violence in Chicago just to score cheap political points for someone’s “cause” is even more reprehensible.

Particularly because it tries to make a point that is just factually inaccurate!

  -30-

Will new year be happy politically?

A part of me is dreading the upcoming election cycle for governor and other Illinois government posts, and wishes I could just keep telling myself that a year from now, it will be over.

RAUNER: Could he beat Rahm?

Except that come the beginning of 2015, we’ll be entering the heart of the election cycle that many Chicagoans think is the only one that really matters – come Feb. 24, 2015 (and a runoff on April 7, if needed) for mayor and alderman.

WE’RE IN FOR a lengthy spell of politicizing as millionaire Bruce Rauner attempts to gain himself a political post so he can work with his friend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in imposing their own vision of what government should be.

That is a vision that I’m sure will repel many people – although whether that will be enough for them to succeed is questionable.

I’ll have to confess – in recent weeks I have begun to think more of Rauner’s chances of winning the March 18 Republican primary. His strategy has always been to use his ample finances to buy name recognition so that he can dwarf the three GOP challengers he now faces.

Considering that none of those people has done anything to distinguish themselves in this cycle, I can easily envision Dan Rutherford, William Brady and Kirk Dillard fighting to the death in the next three months for the right to split up 70 percent of the primary vote.

THAT LEAVES 30 percent for Rauner – which in a primary with as many candidates as this one has could well be enough to “win” on Election Day.

I still believe that a Rauner victory ultimately will turn off the share of Illinois voters outside of the Chicago area – who want to beat Pat Quinn for being “too Chicago” but can’t make up their minds on who they want to challenge him in the Nov. 4 general election.

EMANUEL: Will he hurt, or help, Rauner?

Why do I envision Quinn enjoying this particular holiday season, knowing that thus far circumstances are all falling into place in ways to ensure his ultimate victory? Not bad for a guy who supposedly only has a 26 percent approval rating – which is higher than that of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan!

A Rauner victory also picks up all the people who these days are scheming about ways in which to dump Emanuel from City Hall come the 2015 election cycle. Could the governor’s race become their practice run for a “Dump Rahm” campaign next year?

QUINN: The only happy man these days?

I’M SURE THERE are some activist and organized labor types who would like to think this way?

Although I think I’d take them a bit more seriously if they could come up with some sort of serious candidate who’d be willing to take on Emanuel – who I suspect will be just as vindictive as the Daleys ever were to the idea of someone with the gall to think they could be a better public official.

I suspect that next year’s mayoral cycle will put a token challenger against Emanuel – one whose lack of campaign funding will prevent him (or her) from running a legitimate campaign against Rahm.

The dwarfs now running against Rauner (or should we think of them as the Three Stooges?) will look completely legitimate compared to the mayoral hopeful.

IT’S ALMOST A shame that Rauner couldn’t somehow decide to run for mayor (he does have addresses within the city – even though living in a downtown high-rise might be too off-putting to the bungalow set).

Emanuel vs. Rauner – a brawl to the political death, to see which one can use significant financial advantage to wipe out the other.

Or, maybe we’d get lucky enough and they’d annihilate each other. Why do I suspect that a significant share of the Chicago electorate wouldn’t be the least bit upset?

  -30-