When attorneys for the state of Illinois defended the ban on concealed carry on public transit, they claimed that if lawful gun owners could bear arms on Chicago's trains and buses the city would be a more dangerous place.
The truth is that Chicago's more dangerous than it has to be because lawful gun owners can't carry in self-defense on public transportation, as two recent incidents show.
On June 16, CWB Chicago reported on the attack of a disabled woman on a Green Line train in the city. Prosecutors allege 43-year-old Richard Person yanked his victim to the floor of a Green Line train on June 8, stripping her of her clothing, threatening her with a knife, and sexually assaulting her.
When the train reached Oak Park, Person allegedly ordered the woman to get off the train and forced her to the ground on nearby Metra property. Pekara said Person sexually assaulted the woman multiple times at the second location.
Passersby intervened upon seeing the woman trying to crawl away from Person, according to Pekara. Police arrested him nearby.
This woman wasn't physically able to run away from her attacker, but she might have been able to defend herself with a gun or even a Taser if she'd been allowed to legally carry one. The state and Chicago Transit Authority's weapons ban didn't stop Person from allegedly bringing a knife onto the train, but it does prevent lawful gun owners from being able to protect themselves against guys like him.
The following day CWB reported on another attack on public transit, this time on a Red Line train.
Chicago police said two men got into a fight while riding the train around 3:30 a.m. The altercation escalated when one of the men pulled out a “sharp object” and cut the other man several times, according to a police statement. A first responder at the scene said the victim appeared to have been cut with a razor blade. The 36-year-old victim was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in fair condition, according to CPD.
At last report, no arrest has been made in this case, and it's entirely possible that the perpetrator will get off scot-free. I know what the clearance rate is for non-fatal assaults that don't involve a gun, but only 6% of non-fatal shootings resulted in an arrest in Chicago last year.
When citizens can protect themselves, the odds of justice being served increase immensely. Yes, the gun owner may fire in self-defense, but we know that the vast majority of defensive gun uses don't involve the pull of a trigger, like this case out of Chicago where a carjacker was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison after being held at gunpoint by his intended victim until police arrived.
Around 6:28 a.m. on January 2, 2024, Chicago police responding to a call of a “citizen holding an offender” found the 39-year-old carjacking victim holding [Darrius] Berry at gunpoint in the 9400 block of South Laflin Street.
The victim explained that he was sitting in his 2021 Mazda CX-9 when Berry walked up to his driver’s window and pointed a gun at his head.
“Please give me the keys,” Berry allegedly told him. “I need your car. I’m sorry, sir… Go in the house.”
The victim complied, handed over his keys, and entered his house.
Once inside, he grabbed his own gun and went back outside. Berry was sitting behind the steering wheel of the Mazda with a firearm on the passenger seat, the report said.
“If you reach for it, I’ll blow your head off,” the man recalled telling Berry.
He then opened the door to his car, grabbed Berry by the collar, and pulled him to the ground, officials said.
“Who’s with you?” he asked Berry, thinking there may be accomplices.
“He’s around the corner,” Berry reportedly replied. But the victim said he never saw anyone else.
Police recovered the firearm Berry allegedly left on the Mazda’s passenger seat. A CPD report said it had been stolen from a vehicle in the 1400 block of West 90th Street about a month before the botched hijacking.
Though the 19-year-old was sentenced to prison, thanks to the soft-on-crime policies of Illinois Democrats he could be out in about three years.
Those laws are a problem in and of themselves, but when you combine them with the tough-on-gun-owners laws that are in place it's a playbook in giving criminals the upper hand over their intended victims. There's little fear of getting caught and facing serious consequences for committing violent crimes, but the vast majority of lawful gun owners don't want to risk an arrest for carrying in a "gun-free zone", even if the odds of them being taken into custody are pretty slim.
The gun bans on public transportation are putting people at risk, and the Seventh Circuit should strike them down when it issues its opinion in Schoenthal v. Raoul. These bans don't comport with the history and tradition of gun ownership to begin with, but keeping them in place violates common sense as well as the Constitution.
