Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is always ready and willing to point the finger at others over her failure to drive down the violent crime rate in the city; from Indiana gun stores that she says are arming criminals to her recent assertion that court closures in Cook County have left criminals untouched by the criminal justice system (a claim that Politifact rated as “false”).

While the mayor deflects criticism from her own failures, Chicagoans themselves are taking steps to protect themselves and others. On July 4th, one shooter in the city ended up facing returning fire from a concealed carry licensee. Police were called out just before 11 p.m. to an alley on the city’s north side and found four people shot.

Police determined one of the injured people was a gunman who shot the other three before being shot by a witness, who pulled his own gun and shot the attacker.

A 45-year-old female victim two other people had been standing in the alley when a 33-year-old man approached and began shooting, police said.

The woman, Janina Ford, was shot in the head and was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 32-year-old man and a 49-year-old man were hospitalized for their wounds.

Police said an uninvolved 49-year-old man witnessed the attack, and shot the gunman. Police said the man possessed a concealed carry license and could legally possess a weapon.

Good for him, but let’s not forget that there are tens of thousands of Illinoisans (including plenty of residents of the city of Chicago) who are currently stuck in a legal limbo when it comes to keeping and bearing arms of their own thanks to the inability or unwillingness of the Illinois State Police to process Firearm Owner ID card and concealed carry applications in a timely fashion.

And of course, while Lori Lightfoot falsely claims that court closures in Cook County are to blame for the rising crime in Chicago, she won’t utter a word in support of those residents who are impatiently waiting for the government to get off its collective rear end to give them their required permission slip to keep and bear arms. As far as Lightfoot is concerned, the fewer armed citizens the better.

Many citizens themselves obviously have a very different point of view, as evidenced by the record-high levels of interest in both buying and carrying a firearm for self-defense. They know that the gun laws in other states aren’t to blame for criminal behavior in Chicago. They know that the laws in Illinois limiting the rights of responsible citizens aren’t stopping bad actors from pulling out an illegally-obtained gun on a city street and shooting into a crowd.

They’re also well aware that Mayor Lightfoot and many of her Democratic allies in the state legislature would rather eradicate the Second Amendment than see citizens protect themselves with a firearm. They see the headlines proclaiming that nearly 100 people were shot in Chicago this past weekend, and they know that it will be months before the state gets around to approve their own concealed carry license.

If Lori Lightfoot really wants to fight crime in Chicago, she should be doing everything she can to ensure good people can fight back. Instead, she’s still making excuses and doing everything she can to curtail the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right at the expense of individual safety.