(05-28-2020 11:12 AM)Rice93 Wrote: Tanq, I'm curious as to your opinion about the reasons for the murder rate of Chicago to be twice that of Houston. Do you think it involves different approaches to gun laws?
The difference in gun laws is that in Houston, even in the city limits, it is relatively easier to get a handgun that in Chicago. For your information, Chicago has effectively a near abn on the sales of firearms in the city --- partly legal in nature, partly the aftereffects of the decades long legal issues that were put into exile by SCOTUS in McDonald. Currently, there are no (as in zero, zilch, null, nada) gun stores in Chicago proper. IIRC the current batch of applicants to do so have run smack into the thicket of *extra* ordinances that Chi-town government swears up, down, and sideways are not intended to ban firearm sales.
Houston rules default to the Texas rules --- which default to the almost bare Federal mandated minimums on firearm transactions and prohibitions.
And the default Illinois rules *are* much stricter than Texas, and Chicago adds 'extra spice' to those rules locally.
If you want to champion that restrictive to the point of banning fireamr sales is a causation of that doubling -- feel free to do so. I cannot see that logic.
But your initial statement that the 'loose sales' of Indiana are causation of that doubling are simply not supported with the Houston example. So, when I hear that canard on 'blaming those Hoosiers', I find it rather ill-informed and somewhat contrary to the examples of loose sales restriction large cities.
So no, I dont think a near ban on guns causes a doubling in the murder rate. Nor do I think the 'loose laws' of the neighbor are the major boogeyman either, based on the numbers of large cities where loose sales are the framework.