Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Gov. Pritzker: “Thank God That It Hasn’t Happened Here”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker says he’s thankful that the state has not suffered a mass shooting like those over the weekend — without mentioning two major shootings with multiple deaths in the past decade.
The Democrat was asked Monday in Chicago about the shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, which left a total of 31 dead.
Pritzker said: “Thank God that it hasn’t happened here.”
He made no mention of the Feb. 15 shooting at an Aurora warehouse that killed five or the one at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb on Feb. 14, 2008 that left five dead.
Let’s look at the Chicago stats from Hey Jackass.com
2019 Year To Date Totals
Posted on (beginning) February 1, 2019
Year to Date
Shot & Killed: 278
Shot & Wounded: 1365
Total Shot: 1643
Total Homicides: 305
Hardly the truth, but that isn’t the point when it comes to racial identity politics. Nothing to see here folks, move along.
A big tip of the hat to Second City Cop.
Published in Policing
One would think that a politician from Illinois should know to keep his mouth shut when people are talking about gun deaths somewhere other than Chicago.
He seems to have fallen into the statistical trap that many fall into – events that are spread out over time or place have less apparent impact as more concentrated events, even if the total actual impact of the spread out event is larger. A single event that results in 23 deaths gets more coverage than several events that kill 2 or 3 people at a time, even if there are so many of the several events that they collectively result in more than 23 deaths. People often do this with vehicle accidents. The crash of a commercial airliner that kills 150 or more people gets lots of press coverage. But the constant drumbeat of car crashes that kill tens of thousands of people every year may get some small amount of coverage in local media. Because of the disparity of media coverage, many people erroneously conclude that riding in a commercial airliner is more dangerous than riding in a car.
Thanks for the link to the HeyJackass site Doug. Looking over the stats there, they show a Homicide Clearance Rate of about 10% for the 2019 homicides. I don’t know what that percentage typically is in any jurisdiction; but, that 10% rate seems incredibly low to me.
Good lord. What a nitwit.
Bullseye.
Snitches get far worse than stitches.
What he really meant to say was “Thank God we only kill ’em one or two at a time here.”
Fat ol’ JB is more interested in Illinois as the progressive paradise with his wondrous accomplishments, including massive tax hikes, legal pot, and some of the most permissive nd aggressive abortion laws in the nation. Yay! Who cares about people on the west and south sides?
All of the words banned by the CoC apply to this walking example of limousine liberal trash. Hopefully he will end up in the Governor’s Wing of the State Pen for his toilet tax fraud.
The resemblance is uncanny.
Maybe he forgot that Chicago was in Illinois.
Rich people should pay more, but billionaire leftist governors can cheat on more than $300K in property taxes.
He ran against Rauner the Republican incumbent, a complete stiff. Suits on the rack aren’t as empty as the one Rauner has on.
What a clown.
So 7 victims, 3 victims, 8 victims, 3 victims.
All in a 72 hour period, and that moron is thankful it hasn’t happened there.
Just another summer weekend in Chicago.
The rest of Illinois would be thrilled.
Yeah. The same people demanding the Police “do something” do everything they can to ensure the police can’t do anything except take reports.
Their fear as to the consequences of cooperating with the police is well-founded.
There are anonymous tip lines.
They also elect politicians and DA’s and judges that tie the police in knots.
Do they want it to end or not?
And that is over just six or seven months? Crazy.
Of course, shootings that don’t get 24 hour cable news coverage leave people just as dead so . . .
It just strikes me as a callous comment given how incorrect he was.
Also, I was going to leave it at that but then I looked up the Aurora shooting mentioned in the OP and wow. It is sad what happened. I said “wow” because this is a crazy story. The guy who did the shooting was a felon who simply lied on his IL firearm owner application and got the gun (illegally? but legally?). The police later found out and revoked his license and asked him to give the gun back (“sure thing, as soon as I get off work”– a natural response). If I’m reading it right, the only reason the cops found out was because evil galaxy brain tried to also apply for a concealed carry permit and lied again but this time someone actually did their job. But then someone else decided to ask him to hand his gun over.
And the Governor’s likely response will be to ask law abiding citizens to give more power and trust to the government when it comes to guns. I’m not so sure.
It’s difficult to find Democrats who don’t display this trait these days.
So, it turns out that the Democratic Governor of Illinois does not believe that black lives matter.
Depends on who is taking those lives . . .
Doug, I disagree about this one, in part.
I think that there is excessive attention given to certain mass shootings, particularly those with a very large number of victims. My general impression is that the major cutoff is 10, and another important cutoff is at 20.
From your data, it does not appear that there was a mass shooting resulting in 10 or more deaths, in Illinois, in recent decades. The Governor was talking about a pair of shootings this weekend that were both in double digits. It seemed fair to say, essentially, that nothing “like that” has occurred in Illinois recently.
I understand that there are lower cutoffs used in some compilations of “mass shootings,” but I think that a double-digit death toll is usually the most relevant cutoff for media purposes.
It is quite morbid to discuss this. Again, I think that these extremely rare mass shootings, with double-digit death tolls, get too much attention and generate unfortunate hysteria. Not that they are unimportant, but I agree with the point made both by you and by Kozak that the overall homicide rate is a better indicator.
Good points! Its the death toll and the setting that really generate coverage. A few mass shootings have dominated the discussion of all other mass shootings. But IL has had a deadly and preventable mass shooting that was in part due to their government simply failing to do something really basic. Also, when you are the governor of IL and one of your cities is Chicago you never ever come close to doing anything like a humble brag about gun violence. To me, its a bad look. At best he has a detached ignorance or habituation about/to the gun violence in one of his cities, which is one the largest in the country.
You have a good point about Chicago, but I don’t know if it is within the governor’s control.
I’m not sure how things work in Illinois, but here in Arizona, law enforcement within a city is principally the responsibility of the city’s police department, which is under the control of the city council. The county sheriff’s department also has jurisdiction, but this is under the control of an elected county sheriff.
Prosecution is principally the responsibility of the county prosecutor, a county-wide elected office. The state attorney general’s office may be involved, in some cases, but this is a state-wide elected office.
None of this is under the direct control of the governor.
Fair enough. I don’t want to reach too much. I’m not familiar with it either. At least in FL, Tallahassee and the Big Bend area, in general, worked with the governor’s office to get pots of money to make all sorts of quality of life improvements, including things for at risk youth. In Fl, things were a little more blended. I’m not suggesting that Gov Scott or Gov DeSantis could order Broward Sheriff’s Office to do something in terms of procedures and they’d do it, but there is a working relationship and some money in exchange for certain metrics.
Also, the IL FOID process is controlled by the IL State police, so that seems to me to be much closer to the governor’s office than Cook County PD. That shooting stems from their mistake. But that doesn’t change your broader point.