Story from the South Side of Chicago exposes the idiocy of Illinois' lack of legal concealed carry.

A couple of off-duty police officers, a man and a woman, find a used car advertised on Craigslist and call the advertiser to get the location. They show up and call him as he requested. When they are led behind a building to look at the alleged car, they are attacked with one criminal grabbing the woman and putting a gun to her head and another criminal beating the man with a baseball bat. The man identifies himself as a police officer and draws his own gun. When the gun-toting criminal points his gun at the man, he shoots all three of the criminals involved.

The real story here is that the Markham police officers were armed and the bad guys didn't know it! That is the essence of concealed carry licenses that are issued in all but two states of the Union, with Illinois being one of them. Good guys with guns the bad guys don't know about.

“[The offenders] ran into the wrong police officers,” DuBois (Markham police Deputy Chief) said. “What if they were ordinary citizens? Not trained to handle those situations? It…[could have been] tragic.”

I think ol' Tony has drawn the wrong lesson from this. People who have concealed carry licenses are no different from off-duty police officers who carry concealed except for two very important points: 1. we have no duty to try to arrest anyone; and, 2. we have gone to a lot of trouble and expense to get our concealed carry licenses, including Use of Deadly Force Training and meeting marksmanship standards. The differences between the male officer and us is that we wouldn't identify ourselves as police before shooting at the bad guys and, I hate to say it, most of us are firearms enthusiasts and shoot more in practice annually than most police officers.

Before someone starts ranting about how the police officers are trained, etc., I doubt that they are better trained in close combat than former members of the Armed Forces. I have shown law enforcement officers at the Federal and local levels things that they hadn't ever thought about, and I'm not the expert that some of my acquaintances are.

Make no mistake, I think the officer did very well under the circumstances. I just don't think that it was because he was a police officer. Unfortunately, under current Illinois law, if he had been a civilian, he and his female companion would have been in big trouble.

ECS

This is a really bad idea.

From the Christian Science Monitor we get word that the United States...us...has accepted 1,350 Palestinians to be resettled here from the refugee camps in Iraq where they have been since 1948. The problem, acknowledged by the Monitor, is this:

But some critics say the State Department is sloughing off its problems onto American cities, especially since in this case the Palestinians were sympathizers of Hussein, who was deposed by the US.

"This is politically a real hot potato," says Mark Krikorian, director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, adding, "[A]merica has become a dumping ground for the State Department's problems – they're tossing their problems over their head into Harrisburg, Pa., or Omaha, Neb."

These aren't just any "refugees." These are people and their descendants who left Israel in 1948 so they wouldn't have to live in a Jewish state and have been kept in refugee camps instead of being integrated into their host countries' populations. I'm pretty sure they haven't been given the "hearts and flowers" story of America and its relationship with Israel and the Arabs. They've probably learned everything they know about us from Hamas and Hezbollah. Just where are these potential Jihadis going to be dropped? You might want to keep an eye out for lots of moving trucks in your neighborhood.

ECS

There is more to the story in Chicago than just a little girl washing her dog

From Second City Cop:

lil george said:

"OT(sort of): I posted the other day about the fat bitch at 7121 s. Normal wishing the police harm. It was a typo. It was actually 7421 s. Normal. My typing mistake. The 9 yoa that was killed lived almost DIRECTLY behind this address. Gerald Lauderdale, who was one of the two people charged in the homicide, was hanging with these pieces of s*** that night. He kept yelling from the porch "I ain't got no job b******tches! F*** ya all." I guess payback is a b****. Not to insult the memory of an innocent 9 yoa, but this family didn't want us around because they wanted to continue their ghetto thug lifestyle. Breeding, drinking, screaming till 6am and contributing NOTHING to the world. Now, due to fear of retribution, fat mama had to turn her kid in. They HAD to turn to the police to protect this POS. Had to turn him in so that she could continue her useless life of police hating all the while while NEEDING the police to protect him from her fellow thugs who she associates with. Irony may be a word to describe this situation.

And, as a side note to this story, there was a burglary to a business at 350 W. 75th Street on 27jun at approximately 5am. Owner was in fear of his life due to threatening messages from the hood. Owner would not talk to officers onscene but sent an associate to scene to survey the damage. This business is located within a half block from where the child was killed. On scene, the associate stated that the owner used to live at 7419 s. normal, but had moved due to a threat from a certain individual on 74 and stewart who was pissed because he was feuding with the neighbors at 7421 s. Normal (sound familiar?) and since he lived next door, he must be siding with the block. These threats got so bad that the owner moved fearing for his safety and has been looted ever since. Who were the fat b**** and now-arrestee feuding with: a man named Andre Turner. Who is Andre Turner? The father of the dead child.

In summary, ghetto pieces of s*** taunt the police but then turn to said police to protect them. Andre Turner threatens the hood and businesses owners and gets shot but is a sympathetic figure to Fr. Faker and the media. War breaks out between both parties. Who pays for these adults living the ghetto life of acting like 6th world animals: an innocent 9yoa. Pathetic
6/27/2009 05:11:00 PM"

This little girl died because she was staying with her gangbanger father at her grandmother's house. Despite her grandmother's claims, the house was a haven for criminals at war with other criminals. It's a shame that her mother left her there with irresponsible adults. This tragedy had nothing to do with law-abiding citizens in Chicago.

ECS