Cook County and the state of Illinois have some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. In order to legally possess a gun in the home residents must be approved for a Firearms Owner ID card, and it takes a 16-hour training course before someone can obtain permission to carry a firearm outside the home. Even then, gun owners are prohibited from possessing magazines that can hold more than ten rounds, and a host of commonly-owned semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols are banned under the state's Protect Illinois Communities Act.
Lawful carry is also prohibited in a number of supposedly "sensitive" places, including public transportation, parks, libraries, and museums.
All of these laws are supposed to make it difficult for criminals to get their hands on a gun, but as the Chicago Sun-Times recently reported in a lengthy piece that's worth reading in its entirety, none of them have prevented the rise of a gang known as the SRT Boys; or, as the paper refers to them "Chicago's kid carjackers."
The SRT Boys have taken advantage of a juvenile court system that, to them, is little more than a revolving door, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. When they get arrested, they know they won’t stay in custody for long.
A police source says the crew’s evolution from phone-snatching to carjacking to commercial burglary is “a perfect example of just why things can go bad.
“Look at the number of them, with nobody, nobody stopping them. It’s just a failure of the system all the way around. And then people get hurt, and people get killed.”
They’ve told authorities they’re affiliated with the Four Corner Hustlers, New Breeds and Traveling Vice Lords, old-time gangs on the West Side. But, according to police sources, they’re really just their own social media “clique.”
Rappers in their group have tried to shape themselves in the images of Chief Keef or Lil Durk by posting “diss tracks” and alarming videos.
In one song, Baby 7 raps in a jarringly high-pitched little kid’s voice about shooting a rival in the face with an AR-15 rifle. In videos, SRT Boys are shown toting machine guns, flashing cash and drinking lean, a mix of pop and prescription cough syrup.
"Baby 7" is 15-years-old, and according to the paper was already a "seasoned bandit" at the tender age of 12. He and his tween and teen cohorts have been terrorizing the city for years, but thanks to Illinois' criminal justice system even when they are caught the legal consequences are few and far between.
Lance Williams, a professor of urban community studies at Northeastern Illinois University, works with at-risk kids in North Lawndale. He says crews like the SRT Boys grew out of a culture of lawlessness during the pandemic.
They weren’t in the classroom. They weren’t playing sports. And nobody was there to make them, it seems.
They wore balaclavas to cover their faces, taking the government’s masking guidance aimed at slowing the spread of COVID and using it to thwart law enforcement.
Meantime, the police pulled back from routine patrols and assertive policing to limit their contact with sick people, Williams says.
“The guys took this as an opportunity to get buckwild,” he says. “If you got caught as a pre-teen, you would be home at the end of the day. I think that contributed to this spike in carjackings and robberies and criminal behavior.”
Some of the SRT Boys have now reached the age of adulthood, and are serving time for their adult crimes. One of them ended up behind bars because his intended victim was exercising his Second Amendment rights.
Jeremiah Brown, another alleged SRT Boy, is now serving a nine-year prison term for an attempted armed robbery. The 20-year-old has a young daughter who lives with her mom.
On Dec. 5, 2022, Brown pointed a gun in the face of a man smoking a cigarette in his truck in the southeast corner of Austin.
The man, a concealed-carry permit-holder, grabbed the extended magazine of Brown’s gun, then pulled his own pistol and shot him and two of his teenage accomplices. One of the kids crashed the stolen car they fled in. It had been used in armed robberies on the Northwest Side earlier in the day, according to the police.
In another case in 2017, the same concealed-carry holder shot three “outlaw” motorcycle gang members who attacked him and his friends outside a Northwest Side bar, court records show. In both cases, prosecutors concluded that the man fired in self-defense.
The state of Illinois continues to erect barriers between we the people and our right to keep and bear arms, all while young offenders like Brown are running wild. The arrest rate for non-fatal shootings in Chicago is less than 10%, and the vast majority of carjackings and robberies go unpunished as well.
The gun control regime imposed by Illinois lawmakers and officials in Chicago and Cook County has done a pretty good job of artificially suppressing the number of armed citizens, but it's been an abysmal failure at stopping young offenders like Brown. "Baby 7", for instance, has been arrested nine times and charged in juvenile court with crimes including carjacking, robbery and possession of stolen vehicles, but the teen has quickly been returned to the streets every time.
Another alleged SRT Boy was sentenced to probation for possessing a handgun illegally modified to shoot full auto, as well as a "large capacity" magazine; evidence that Illinois' gun laws aren't just failing to prevent these kids from getting their hands on a gun, but do nothing more than deliver a slap on the wrist to juvenile offenders when they're caught violating them.
Things aren't likely to change so long as Democrats maintain their grip on the levers of state and local government. The best thing for Chicago residents to do is to take a page from the armed citizen who's twice had to defend himself against armed attackers; legally arm yourself, despite all the red tape involved, and support those Second Amendment organizations that are working to tear down the unconstitutional laws infringing on our right to keep and carry a gun.
