While he continues to ignore the ones committing the shootings.
Via Chicago Tribune
Mayor Rahm Emanuel today called for a multifaceted response to gun violence in Chicago as part of the kick-off of a new organization run by the parents of a young girl whose shooting became a national symbol for the city’s struggle with violent crime.
Emanuel spoke at the launch of “Hadiya’s Promise,” an organization started by the parents of Hadiya Pendleton, who was gunned down near President Barack Obama’s Kenwood home in 2013. They say they will use their group to lobby for tougher gun control laws and work to organize anti-violence groups so their voices can carry as much weight as that of the National Rifle Association.
The mayor has made gun control one of the major themes of his administration at a time when shootings in the city have remained stubbornly high and become a political problem for him heading into his re-election campaign. In his remarks today, he hewed to familiar points about the need for tougher gun legislation “that reflects the values of the city of Chicago.”
“The city of Chicago is not an island,” he said as Hadiya’s parents, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton, looked on at the Martin Luther King Center in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
“Three-quarters to 80 percent of the guns taken off the streets are coming from outside the city: Downstate, Indiana, Wisconsin,” he said. “Every weekend the Chicago Police Department takes more guns off the street than New York or L.A.”
Emanuel has been frustrated in his attempts to push tougher state gun laws during his first term. And Chicago has lost a series of court decisions on gun control, forcing him to introduce an ordinance to the City Council to allow gun sales in city limits.
Emanuel has taken to talking about guns as one part of a response to violence that also includes family values, job opportunities for young people and education. He hit those themes today as well. “There’s no one answer to this,” he said.
“When you say ‘What is the ‘X’? There is no one thing or combination,” Emanuel said. “And if you try to search for the Holy Grail, like that’s the thing, you’re missing — there’s a lot of things.”
HT DOOT