"When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982 , it was part of a trend . Washington , D.C. , had done it in 1976 , and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years . They all expected to reduce the number of guns and thus curtail bloodshed . District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer told The Washington Post in 2007 , `` It 's a pretty common-sense idea that the more guns there are around , the more gun violence you 'll have. `` Nadine Winters , a member of the Washington City Council in 1976 , said she assumed at the time that the policy `` would spread to other places. `` But the fad never really caught fire Â— even before last summer , when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the D.C. law and cast doubt on the others , including the Chicago ordinance before the court Tuesday . The Second Amendment may kill such restrictions , but in most places , it was n't needed to keep them from hatching in the first place . Maybe that 's because there were so many flaws in the basic idea . Or maybe it was because strict gun control makes even less sense at the municipal level than it does on a broader scale . At any rate , the policy turned out to be a comprehensive dud . In the years following its ban , Washington did not generate a decline in gun murders . In fact , the number of killings rose by 156 percent Â— at a time when murders nationally increased by just 32 percent . For a while , the city vied regularly for the title of murder capital of America . Chicago followed a similar course . In the decade after it outlawed handguns , murders jumped by 41 percent , compared with an 18 percent rise in the entire United States . One problem is that the bans did n't actually have any discernible effect on the availability of guns to people with felonious intent . As with drugs and hookers , when there is a demand for guns , there will always be a supply . Who places the highest value on owning a firearm ? Criminals . Who is least likely to fear being prosecuted for violating the law ? Criminals . Who is most likely to have access to illicit dealers ? You guessed it . If we were starting out in a country with zero guns , it might be possible to keep such weapons away from bad guys . But that 's not this country , which has more than 200 million firearms in private hands and a large , perpetual supply of legal handguns . Only a tiny percentage of those weapons has to be diverted to the underground trade for crooks to acquire all the firepower they need . While gun bans greatly impede the law-abiding , they pose only a trivial inconvenience to the lawless . This is especially true at the local level . Banning guns from one city makes about as much sense as banning them on one block . It 's hard enough to halt the flow of guns over international borders , where governments police traffic . It 's impossible to stop them from crossing municipal boundaries Â— which are unmonitored , undefended and practically invisible . Tens of thousands of cars enter Washington and Chicago each day from places where guns are easily and legally obtainable . Any of those vehicles could be transporting a carton of pistols to sell to willing thugs . If you 're on an island , you 're going to get splashed by the waves . The proponents obviously knew all along this city-by-city approach had serious shortcomings . But they figured it was bound to curtail gun availability somewhat . They also hoped that by prohibiting handguns in one place , they were beginning a bigger process . First , they expected that other cities and states would follow suit . Second , they wagered that strict controls at the local level would acclimate Americans to new regulations at the national level . But things did n't work out that way . The persistence of crime in supposedly gun-free zones did n't build support for broader gun control by showing the limits of piecemeal legislation . It weakened the case , by proving that such regulations have little impact on the people who present the biggest danger . Instead of a broad upward avenue , it was a dead end . Gun control supporters fear that if the Supreme Court invalidates local handgun bans , the consequences will be nothing but bad . That would be easier to believe if the laws had ever done any good ."
"Only a complete XXXXX , devoid of even the slightest measurable amount of critical thinking skills , would support Chicago 's handgun ban ."
"When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982 , it was part of a trend . Washington , D.C. , had done it in 1976 , and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years"
"Only a complete XXXXX , devoid of even the slightest measurable amount of critical thinking skills , would support Chicago 's handgun ban ."