The most common reason for someone to buy a firearm is personal protection. While the homicide rate is down, it's still a dangerous world out there, and even the safest neighborhood has threats. Ever had a neighbor's pitbull that seemed chill decide to be anything but? Not fun.
So, we have guns for the threats that arise. People like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson don't like that.
Which, I guess, is fine. People have a right to their own opinions.
What bothers me with Johnson, though, is that, like many anti-gunners, it's not that he doesn't think guns make people safe. It's not that he hates guns. It's that he hates the thought of someone like you or me having one.
Otherwise, why have so much security?
A report from the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s senior VP and general counsel Lawrence Keane indicates pro-gun control Mayor Brandon Johnson’s “armed security” detail costs taxpayers about $30 million a year.
According to Keane, the detail “includes as many as 150 Chicago Police Department officers.”
Keane noted that Johnson avails himself of the security provided with firearms while simultaneously praising restrictions on citizens’ ability to own the rifle of their choice:
In Chicago, Mayor Johnson has backed some of Illinois’ most restrictive firearm policies. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2023 reversed a lower court’s preliminary injunction against Illinois’ ban on so-called “assault-style weapons,”… [which included the] state’s magazine restrictions, Mayor Johnson praised the ruling and called the law an “important step” that would keep “weapons of war” out of neighborhoods.
Keane observed, “The practical message to Chicago residents was clear. Government officials and their armed details can enjoy armed personal protection but the public should accept tighter limits on the tools of lawful self-defense.”
$30 million a year for personal security. That's just insane.
I mean, how much security does the guy actually need here? I get that Chicago is a dangerous place and he isn't popular with everyone, but damn.
Seriously, with that kind of money for security, you'd imagine he's hiring former Navy SEALS and Green Berets to handle security for him, not just detailing Chicago PD officers as his security detail in company strength.
Meanwhile, everything he does on guns is about keeping everyone else unarmed.
See, it's not that he hates guns. He hates the idea of anyone who can't outsource their security to law enforcement being protected by guns. He hates the idea of the plebian masses being protected by guns.
Violence in the streets is a justification for a lot of things, and not just gun control. He can raise taxes to pay for more police officers, to name just one example. Politicians can manipulate reality to justify almost anything, and so it's not that big of a deal for him or people like him. They'll be safe, after all. They've got 150 of Chicago's Finest protecting them.
For all the animosity toward guns, the inescapable fact is that people like guns. They like guns just fine. They like them in the hands of criminals, who they churn out of the jails and prisons at an alarming rate, and they like them in the hands of police and private security.
It's just you they want to completely screw over.
$30 million is a lot of money, and while I don't think anyone is shocked by the mayor of a major American city having it, these levels are extreme even for that. Especially as he seems to think he needs it, but no one else in Chicago should feel a bit safer with a gun in the room with them.
The fact that this is just par for the course, though, is a major problem.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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