Gun Control Advocates to Daley: STFU

Of all places... out of San Francisco:

Chicago mayor’s comments wound gun-control advocacy
By: Gregory Kane June 8, 2010

America’s gun-control proponents might want to consider shooting (pun intended) this memo to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

“Dear Mayor Daley: Please shut up. You ain’t helping us.”

Is there anyone doing more damage for advocates of gun control than Daley? The man is a walking billboard for right-to-carry laws. Anyone needing proof of that might want to read the statements he made in the wake of an 80-year-old Chicago man fatally shooting a career criminal who invaded his home.

The background story goes like this:

The elderly man is a Korean War veteran who bought a handgun after three thugs robbed him at gunpoint in his home in late 2009. Chicago police would not reveal this elderly hero’s name, but my late older sister had a nickname she would give any old-timer she ran across: Pop Bucket.

For the purposes of this story, we’ll simply call the Chicago man — who defended his life, family and home in defiance of Daley’s tyranny — Pistol Pop Bucket. In late May, Anthony Nelson broke into Pistol Pop’s home. According to news reports, Nelson had a criminal history that included prison stints for drug and weapon convictions.

Nelson and Daley, before the incident, probably had little in common other than protoplasm and the firm conviction that Pistol Pop wouldn’t have a handgun in his home, because the city of Chicago bans them. Nelson got his rude and final awakening after he fired at Pistol Pop and missed. Pistol Pop returned fire, fatally wounding Nelson.

Daley has yet to get his awakening. In fact, he’s as stubbornly anti-handgun as ever. Listen to his comments about the Pistol Pop-Nelson affair, taken from the Chicago Sun-Times:

“Daley said that he ‘understands the frustration’ that prompted an 80-year-old robbery victim to purchase a handgun that he used this week to kill a home intruder.

“He still believes that ... access to guns kills far more people than it saves.”

There are a couple of direct Daley quotes in the Sun-Times story, and believe me, they’re gems:

“Criminals have far more access to guns today than in the history of this country, and that is frightening to America. You cannot live in America as the Wild West.

“It’s an issue that most people are afraid to talk about. It’s an issue that, politically, is incorrect. You’ll defeat your career. But if you firmly believe that people should have access to guns at all times, then you have a totally different society.”

Oh, indeed we would, Mr. Mayor. And that society would simply be called “a safer one.” Notice that Daley failed to mention that if the state of Illinois had simply done its job and kept Nelson behind bars, Pistol Pop wouldn’t have had to shoot him. But which political party recently adopted the mantra that convicts are simply society’s latest victims?

That would be Daley’s party.

Here’s Daley’s final quote, and it’s another lulu:

“Access to guns will destroy America faster than any other war. Take Europe. Take Japan and other countries that don’t have the access to guns. They don’t have the amount of killings.”

For the sake of the Pistol Pop Buckets of their city, Chicagoans need to take this pathetic excuse for a mayor and retire him from office.

Examiner columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to Sudan.