Everytown for Gun Safety has posted Thanksgiving Dinner talking points to its website, providing a variety ways people can push gun control to their families while passing the turkey.
The talking points are framed around “debunking gun myths” and provide responses one family member can give to a pro-Second Amendment family member.
For example, if a pro-Second Amendment family member says, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” Everytown suggests responding by saying, “People with guns kill people, and more efficiently than people without guns.”
Or, if a pro-Second Amendment family member says, “Strong gun laws don’t work. Look at Chicago,” Everytown suggests this response: “Chicago proves why we must push for strong federal gun laws. Many of the crime guns recovered in Chicago and in other cities in states with strong gun violence prevention laws are trafficked from states with weaker gun laws.”
Missing from Everytown’s material are the myriad gun controls in effect in the Chicago area, most of which are in effect for the whole of Illinois.
The statewide controls include a red flag law, a 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases, a ban on concealed carry for self-defense on public transit, an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, and Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card requirement. The process for getting a FOID card involves a background check conducted by the Illinois State Police.
Additionally, Chicago sits in Cook County, which has its own “assault weapon” and “high capacity” magazine ban.
Despite these and other gun controls, Chicago has witnessed over 32,000 shooting victims in the last decade alone. Moreover, the city saw over 6,200 murders during the same decade.
It should also be noted that ATF gun recovery and trace data from 2023 for Illinois shows that Illinois is the state of origin from which the majority of guns are recovered/traced.
According to the ATF data, 22,973 firearms were recovered or traced in Illinois in 2023. Of those, 9,147 were from Illinois and, in a distant second, 2,796 were from Indiana.
Beyond Indiana there were not even 1,000 guns recovered or traced with origins in another single state (e.g., there were 952 recovered or traced from Missouri, 663 from Wisconsin, 390 from Tennessee, etc.)
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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