For kids growing up in Chicago, CO2 pistols and 9MM handguns are more common than squirt guns.

How do you begin to fix such a broken city?

CBS Chicago reports:

Every day on the same corner, Tamar Manasseh gives neighborhood kids the chance just to be kids, through her group MASK, or Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killing.

“If they learn to play together as children, they won’t shoot each other as adults,” she says.

I’m not even going to begin to unpack that box of stupid, but as simplistically idiotic as that sounds, one Chicago Alderman has an even better idea: citing parents for allowing their children to have guns.

Ward 15 Ald. Raymond Lopez has introduced an ordinance that calls on parents to play a role in addressing gun violence and holding them accountable with a citation if they know their kid has a gun and doesn’t report it.

“Hopefully this ordinance will start the conversation about having people start paying attention to what’s going on in their children’s bedrooms, who they are hanging out with and what they are doing when they’re out in the street,” Lopez told a local reporter.

While Chicago is arguably the epitome of gun control lunacy, would this ordinance address the and potentially curb the rampant gun violence that plagues the Windy City?

I’d say not, as there is no possible way of either enforcing such an order not to mention they would have one heck of a time proving a parent’s prior knowledge of their child possessing a firearm. Oh, and currently, there would be no monetary penalty if anyone is found guilty of such parental negligence.

If a parent is found to have knowledge of their children ages 16 and under having guns and  “fail to make reasonable efforts to stop the possession or report the possession to law enforcement,” they could be required to perform community service.

BRILLIANT.

While Lopez acknowledges that addressing parenting is only one part of gun violence, a study of Chicago’s 2016 gun violence conducted by the University of Chicago identified the root of the problem.

The study found:

762 people were killed, an increase of 58% from 2015. The rise in homicides came as the number of shootings—3,550, with 4,331 shooting victims—jumped by 47%.

The victims were mostly black and in their teens, while many of the suspects had prior arrest records. And increasingly, much of the violence occurred in just a handful of neighborhoods.

Since homicides and shootings rose last year, stagnant arrest numbers meant more of those crimes remained unsolved than in previous years, and the report’s authors believe the lack of arrests following violent crimes may have played a role in worsening a cycle of retaliatory violence.

You mean failing to arrest criminals contributes to an increase in crime? Nooooo!

When criminals know they have an 81.5% chance of getting away with a crime, they’ll commit more of them?! Inconceivable! 

Perhaps Alderman Lopez should concentrate on Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Police Department’s gross failure to clean up the streets rather than what parents may or may not know their kids are doing in their bedrooms.

Just a suggestion.