At long last, police superintendent Garry McCarthy is facing significant heat for the ridiculous crime rate in the city of Chicago, with numerous high-ranking city voices calling out loudly for his firing. Is CPD Supt McCarthy as incompetent as his critics say? Actually, no—he’s a very good cop. But he’s a political moron, who does exactly what his liberal progressive masters tell him to do. And that’s why he’s in trouble for it.

Of course, had he shown the spine necessary to be the top cop in a city headed toward disaster, he’d never have been hired. His interview process probably began with two questions: “Are you a Democrat? Will you play ball with the party/” Who knows—he probably foresaw a possible political future beyond this one day, especially with the popularity Rahm Emanuel once had as mayor.

But ultimately, Supt. McCarthy is just a carny suckering voters in. And his record shows it: a 21% increase in murders when, nationally, violent crime rates are dropping like a stone. And McCarthy has denied the evidence that widening the spread of private firearm carrying will lower crime rates—not because he has counter-evidence that would surprise everybody, but because his Democrat overlords have told him what to say.

And so Chicago has some of the worst neighborhoods in America: North Lawndale on the West side, Washington Park, Englewood, and Gresham on the South, where more people get shot in a weekend than will ever be victims at some place of education.

Guess what else, besides an obscenely high rate of violent crimes, these neighborhoods have in common? They are among the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago, as if—by magic—there’s some link between economic deprivation and violent crime. This is important because of why some Chicago neighborhoods have very little crime—access to firearms.

For the longest time, handguns (and to be fair, nearly any other kind of firearm) were strictly prohibited in the city, and things got really bad. Then, as you all recall, the Supreme Court handed down a couple of important decisions that struck the ban on handguns in the city. And crime rates for many neighborhoods plunged, specifically for those crimes easily resolved by defensive use of a handgun.

So why not these neighborhoods? Why did these get worse? The answer is the cost.

Oh, you can have a gun in the City of Chicago. First, though, you need to get the firearm owner’s identification card (the FOID), which shows a gun seller that you have had a full background check and can legally purchase a weapon. Then there’s the weapon: a decent handgun will run you between $500 – $600, not including ammunition and a holster (which could be had for little extra).

Now you can purchase a firearm and keep it in your house, where no one gets shot. To bring it out on your front porch or down the street, where it’ll do some good, you need the concealed carry license. This costs $300, and requires 16 hours of training. By the way—that training? Can be anywhere from a couple hundred to almost a grand.

So if you’re an impoverished Chicagoan who wants to take back the neighborhood for decent folks in the fastest way possible—an armed and defensively ready neighborhood—be ready for a few neighbors to shell out about $2,000 each. That might be a monster-sized chunk of your annual income in those neighborhoods, but you can do it, right? After all, the super-trendy neighborhoods in Chicago all did it. Maybe you could stop blowing your cash on stupid stuff like kale, arugula pesto, and tawny ports, Greshamites. Maybe you Englewood residents could have your kids not attend Minecraft camp for one summer, like the folks in the upscale Beverly community did?

The Democrats running Chicago have a problem, but it’s not Garry McCarthy. It’s in their policies. The next top cop—assuming they hire another party loyalist—will fare even worse. And when movies like Chiraq underscore how bad your policies are, to where you try to censor the title, the harder it will be to run from them. Ask Detroit. No one wonders how Detroit got so bad.

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.