No one is surprised to learn that the city of Chicago and most of its inhabitants aren’t fans of firearms. City governments are often reflective of the communities themselves, so to call Chicago anti-gun is a fairly accurate assessment of not just the government but the community as a whole.

However, even most anti-gunners contend that police should probably still have guns. After all, bad people are still going to do bad things and even they would kind of like the guys we task to stop those bad people actually have the means to stop them.

Unless, of course, you’re in Chicago.

While no one really seems to be pushing to disarm Chicago police across the board, there are those who think police should be disarmed while in uniform in certain situations.

This morning I stopped by “Presence St. Joseph’s Hospital” on the 2900 block of Lake Shore Drive to visit slain police officer Rick Francis’s partner, Norm K. (019 – Retired) who recently had a heart attack and as of Friday was still in ICU. After stopping by ICU mid morning today I was instructed that Norm had been moved to another floor. In addition to that the nurse also made aware that the hospital has a strick [sic] policy against persons or in this case, police officers possessing firearms on the premises while not responding to a call for service…

Now I realize this probably isn’t the first incident to have ever occurred… Sporting venues etc. have similar policies. But it was my first along with the fact I was working within my District, in full uniform with a marked vehicle parked out front… To say I stuck out like a sore thumb would be an under statement.

Debating whether to return to the 1st floor and surrender my service revolver to security was not something I was comfortable with… After all, no one from security or otherwise was conducting any kind of searches for weapons from ordinary citizens coming in off the street… No metal detectors were in place. With that knowledge I simply took the elevator up to the appropriate floor to visit with one of our own… unsure exactly what transpired next I can only surmise that the ICU nurse who not only told me which floor/bed Norm was in, obviously made the call down to security to inform them exactly where I was more than likely headed.

Security then arrived to escort him off the premises.

The officer noted that security was also unarmed. Apparently, their method of responding to a bad guy with a gun was to use harsh language. Or maybe they figured if they asked very nicely, the bad guy will stop being bad.

Whatever.

Of course, bad people don’t necessarily avoid hospitals. It was less than a year ago when a maniac opened fire outside of Chicago Mercy Hospital. In that incident, a Chicago police officer and two other people were killed, this despite hospitals being off-limits for firearms according to state law.

Generally, however, such regulations don’t apply to on-duty police officers.

Apparently, though, Presence St. Joseph’s Hospital doesn’t really care about the safety of their patients or visitors since not even their security was armed. I hate to break it to them, signs and good intentions don’t do squat in the grand scheme of things.

Hat tip: The Truth About Guns