News came this morning that Otis MacDonald passed away. Mr. MacDonald is legendary in Chicago, and by rights ought to be as famous as Heller, Brown, and Wade. At the very least, as famous as Heller.

Mr. MacDonald was a long-time Chicago resident who retired in 2010. Tired of having his Morgan Park home invaded by local thugs, he challenged the City of Chicago’s handgun ban, claiming it a violation of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court agreed, and in 2010, the Court ruled 5-4 that Chicago’s decades-long handgun ban was illegal. Mr. MacDonald could own a handgun in Chicago again.

And by coincidence (although you regular Gormogon readers know by now what that means), this tweet appeared:

Also, I'm looking forward to the Czar's (or Mandy's) post @Gormogons regarding the article @DLoesch mentioned. http://t.co/7je8yR46o8

— ScottO the Intrepid (@gscottoliver) April 4, 2014

Referring to this:

Chicago murder rate plummets after CCW implementation http://t.co/vpVCyK6tWC h/t @kellymlong

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) April 4, 2014

Well, in fact, those two events are not really connected. Not exactly.

The truth is this: Chicago’s crime rate is indeed dropping to record levels…but the concealed-carry license was only issued a couple of weeks ago. The drop in crime happened well before anyone in the City of Chicago had a concealed carry license. Indeed, the City is still making obtaining such a license extremely difficult, and while they have very few legal options left, they are delaying concealed carry as much as they can by passing seemingly innocuous concealed carry prohibitions that, when viewed practically, amount to another handgun ban. They keep losing these arguments, but they try.

So if the drop in crime preceded the concealed carry license, how do we account for the drop?

Mr. MacDonald. While very few people in Chicago are carrying handguns legally at the moment, Mr. MacDonald made it legal to have a handgun in one’s own home. Thousands of Chicago residents, in all different neighborhoods, traveled to the suburban gun stores to obtain handguns. Dad’s revolver, stored in the back of a closet, could now be placed on the nightstand. Loaded and ready.

With the ban lifted, homes in every neighborhood in Chicago suddenly had easy-to-use firearms. This happened with sufficient time to coincide with a drop in violent crime.

Let us not get ahead of ourselves: even after the MacDonald decision, the crime-rate spiked up a couple of times. In fact, the crime rate shows very cyclical activity, like an EKG. Overall, violent crimes are down, but not as fast as anyone would like.

But the drop after 2010, when you draw a tend line on violent crimes, is evident.

Now that we have debunked the claim that the Concealed Carry Law has forced the Chicago crime rate to drop, here is the good news: now that CCL is a reality in Chicago, we can watch that rate drop even further.

Outside of the local news media—who seem to relish and delight in every shooting as proof that CCL does not work—not many people think crime will go up in Chicago now.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.