Armed troops on the streets of the city...

I'm not talking about Baghdad, or Kabul... I'm talking about Chicago, IL. There are now at least two IL Legislators calling for the Governor of IL to call up select Illinois National Guard units to help keep the "peace" in Chicago's most violent and dangerous neighborhoods... and more people are signing on to this sort of thinking every day as the death toll mounts in the Windy City.

Is this the results we can expect from other major cities were there are gun bans in place? Is this the inevitable result of denying law-abiding citizens their right to carry the means to protect themselves and their property when confronted with violence? To have armed troops patrolling the streets is preferable to allowing those that wish to take part in securing their own safety and security by owning and carrying the means to stop criminals before they can complete the crimes they are committing?

The number of people that have been killed this year in Chicago by criminals with guns now exceeds the number of troops killed in Iraq in the same time period, yet Chicago insists that the gun ban works and is contributing to the effort to reduce gun violence. Furthermore, they insist that the ban is within their right as a municipality to enact and enforce, even while hundreds of victims lay dead at the hands of criminals WITH GUNS. That's right, despite the ban, there are thousands of handguns and long weapons on the streets and in the hands of those who would willingly use them to commit crimes... yet a family living in Ravenswood, or Canaryville, or Calumet Heights cannot have a firearm on their person, in their car or even in their home for the purpose of protecting themselves from these criminals.

Furthermore, if you take the time to read any of the hundreds of articles concerning this tragedy, you see that the media focus is consistently on the topic of how to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, rather than getting the criminals off the streets all together. It's tantamount to removing the ability of typical, law-abiding citizens to keep fire extinguishers in their homes in an effort to end arson... or removing the privilege of driving from everyone in an effort to stop people from driving drunk. What greater deterrent is there for a criminal to participate in a home invasion or a car jacking than the real and measurable probability that the people in the home or car have a weapon and are ready to defend themselves? With the average response time for a 911 call in Chicago running more than 9 minutes, what are the chances that any other action on the part of the victim will have an effect anyway? I can drive a long way in 9 minutes, and be quite far from the scene of a crime before the police even show up, and in the situation where a home invasion is taking place (perhaps similar to what Jambo experienced not that long ago?), how much damage can be done even before the phone is picked up to call the police?

This is absolutely perfect evidence that gun bans only hurt the citizenry, and do nothing to curb or prevent criminals from acquiring and using weapons against honest people. This is the result... the need to put armed troops on American streets to keep the peace.