Chicago, IL—The laws that were in place here for decades
made carrying a concealed weapon by anyone other that a sworn peace officer,
and few others a felony (UUW Unlawful Use of a Weapon).
It was after police encountered mass killer Richard Speck
with a concealed gun in 1966 that attitudes significantly changed. Speck had just slaughtered eight student nurses
and was not yet identified as the killer. Just days later he was at the old Raleigh Hotel on the near North side, where he got into a fee
dispute with a local prostitute and threatened her with a gun.
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| Mass Murderer Richard Benjamin Speck |
The police were called and it was not handled as an
emergency. Cops responded, confronted
and frisked Speck. They found his .38
snub-nosed revolver. Rather than arrest Speck the simply did what
cops did in those days. Since nobody was
injured they just confiscated Speck’s gun and sent him on his way. Rather than inventory the seized gun the cops
kept it for their own use.
Soon Speck was identified and arrested after a young
physician Dr. Leroy Smith identified him at the Cook County Hospital Emergency
Room. Dr. Smith collected a nice reward
but I must confess that a cop working the wagon transporting Speck to the
hospital actually figured out who he was hauling. Legend has it that since the cop could not
collect the reward himself he worked out a deal with Dr. Smith to split the
proceeds 50/50.
Once the late and great Chicago police superintendent, Orlando
W. Wilson learned about the missed opportunity to pinch Speck with the gun he made some big departmental changes. All,
“Man with a gun” calls were handled with lights and sirens. A zero tolerance policy for UUW was put in
place. All guns recovered were to be
inventoried and submitted to the crime lab for elimination testing for all
unsolved crimes where fired bullets or shell casings were recovered.
Police recruits attending the academy were given special
indoctrination about making UUW arrests.
It became a departmental unwritten standard that every cop that made a
UUW arrest would be rewarded with 8 hours of compensatory time off. Gun pinches were a sure way to boost
officer’s efficiency ratings.
This gun policy was not about officer safety but simply
suspending the Second Amendment. I must
chime in here that the UUW pinches were nearly always incident upon the arrest
for other and often far more serious violations of law. Otherwise law-abiding citizens carrying guns
were not getting involved in criminal events and simply not getting
frisked. That’s always been the case.
In 1968 the Illinois Legislature made the law requiring
people buying or possessing firearms or ammunition to submit to a background
investigation and obtain a Firearm Owner’s Identification Card. The cards are routinely suspended and revoked
for issues involving restraining orders, mental commitments and arrests.
For Chicago cops some fear that those with permits and
concealed weapons will suddenly endanger them.
Today we have lots of data that shows there is no additional threat when
the law-abiding are allowed to carry concealed firearms. They come from every state in our union.
Cops need to be considered all people they come into contact
with to be armed until proven otherwise.
All reasonable precautions remain the same.
As for traffic stops and such there needs to be an exchange
of simple kindness. The gun-carrying
citizens should discreetly tell the officers that he is authorized by permit
and is armed. The cops should in turn
treat that gun-packing citizen as part of the solution to violence rather than
the problem. It has been the statistical
experience that those folks holding the permits are an incredibly honorable and
peaceful bunch.
There are those anti-gun advocates love to throw out inflated
statistics about revoked CCW permits.
The truth is many permits are suspended or revoked on misinformation,
error and data failures. Then there are
those arrested after s shooting who are later cleared and have their permits
reinstated.
