Chicago Doesn't Need the National Guard to Enforce the Law

The idea of calling out the National Guard to supplement the police force in major cities is a populist misconception that goes back to the days of the Vietnam War protests in the 1970's and civil rights unrest in the 1960's.  The only thing that calling out the National Guard achieved in those days was to push the level of violence higher than it already was, and it culminated in the shooting deaths of four unarmed students and the injury of nine others at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970.  Calling out the National Guard to put down protests hasn't ever been successful.  So trying to turn them into law enforcement officers is also headed toward being an unmitigated disaster.  

So far, it's just been a political threat by an unhinged, demented, incompetent President to get at two of his biggest political enemies.  It's not about the crime, since Chicago's crime rate, which has been steadily coming down over the past four or five years, isn't anywhere near the level it is in the cities on the top ten list for violent crime.  It wasn't about crime in Los Angeles, either.  He has the National Guard picking up trash in Washington, D.C.  Otherwise, they wouldn't have anything to do there, either. 

My wife and I have lived here eight years, just now reaching retirement age.  It was a deliberate choice out of four different job offers we received for this last stage of my career and with most other factors being equal, we chose this job offer primarily because of its location.  Finding housing in the city isn't easy, but we had some help, and landed in a reasonably priced, fairly spacious condo in a building for people who are past 55 years of age, on a bus line ten minutes from an "L" station.  Until COVID hit, I rode the bus and train to and from work, without incident, because it takes 15 minutes off the commute.  

After I got comfortable with the ride and the schedule, I discovered that the "L" and the bus connections are the best way to get around, and not have to worry about traffic or parking when I have a doctor's appointment.  And it works well when we want to go out for dinner downtown.  I'm just now getting back to doing that, after driving for a while during the pandemic.  I've never felt unsafe, or insecure, and I've never been uncomfortable, either riding, or at the station getting off and waiting for the bus.  Those times we've done this at night, the trains and busses are full of people coming to or going from sports events, the theaters downtown, dining out or heading to the airport.  

There are high crime areas in the city, as in any large American city, and for a while, there was a problem in a few Chicago neighborhoods with a high percentage of homicides by shootings, including some drive-by incidents and some multiple street incidents.  Much of that was leftover from an neighborhood where a lot of abandoned housing was pulled down around 2015, and in pockets that are within proximity to the Indiana state line, where guns are much more readily available than they are in Illinois.  

Comparatively, I lived in Houston, Texas for over 20 years.  I was a victim of several crimes while living there.  Our apartment was broken into and robbed during the day, in spite of us having an alarm connected to the apartment office, though the police were never called.  My car, parked in the designated, and gated, parking lot of the apartment complex was broken into twice.  Once, the glass of a side window was broken out and the car's stereo system was removed, and the second time, they forced a lock open, and apparently tried to take the car, messing up the ignition switch, but couldn't get it started before a security guard came along and chased them off.  

We also had a window broken out of a car in a mall parking lot in Springfield, Missouri, damage done in order to get an empty purse that had been only partially shoved under a seat.  

None of those crimes could have been prevented by the presence of the National Guard in any of those cities.  

Tonight, we are seeing posts and news reports about shootings in Chicago over this Labor Day weekend.  Well, of course, given the size of the city, and the easy access to weapons just across the state line in Indiana from the south end of Chicago, where a lot of this violence occurs, with gang activity in that part of the city, there will be shootings, especially on holiday weekends when the booze is flowing, too.  But, it's not just Chicago where this is happening.  In fact, this particular Labor Day weekend has been particularly brutal in places like Houston, Miami, St. Louis, Memphis and Jacksonville, and we aren't hearing about Trump sending the National Guard to any of them.  There's not much they could do here, either, unless they are willing to go door to door through some of those southside neighborhoods and collect all of the firearms.  

And the violence is worse on the Indiana side of that state line, at least up here in the northern part of both states.  If there's a place where National Guard patrols on the streets might actually do some good, by simply keeping the criminal element out, it would be Gary, Indiana.  Indiana needs gun control legislation, based on their violent crime statistics, much worse than our Chicago.  

Calling out the National Guard has never been successful in lowering the crime rate.  There's a good reason for this.  They're not trained in law enforcement.  They are quite helpful providing extra hands after a natural disaster.  They're well trained military units whose service in war zones has been effective and appreciated by the regular army troops they are helping.  Law enforcement in this country is not carried out by the military tactic of simply shooting people who are suspected of committing a crime.  American values are based on our experience of living under the tyranny of a king, so we developed a justice system based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty.  

Real American Patriots would never order military troops into the streets to enforce the law at the point of a gun.   

Let's Tell the Truth

Sending in the National Guard to Chicago is a dig at Trump's political rival, Illinois Governor J. D. Pritzker.  Oh, there may be some resentment there, too, about the fact that Chicago took in and is hosting most of those who the governor of Texas, Abbott, sent up here last year by bus, helping them find jobs, which most of them have, and wait out their assylum petitions.  Chicago is, of course, doing what Texas can't and won't do, in proving just how much more patriotic and American we are.  

I've met some of these people.  They're nice, many of them are young couples with families they love and want to keep safe, which is why they risked the trip to get them here.  

Sending the National Guard into Washington, and taking control of the police force there hasn't changed that city's declining crime rate one bit.  It was already lower than it had been in a decade, largely due to the efforts of the Biden administration.  Trump has the National Guard pick up trash, but really, there's not much they're able to do that contributes to lowering a crime rate that is already on the way down because the city's police department finally got some resources it needed to combat the root problems of high crime.  

Compare crime rates across the country during Trump's first term in office to Biden's, and the difference is notably significant.  Well, that's what happens when the government invests in law enforcement.  We should, since we claim to believe in the rule of law, but Trump never would.  Biden did, and it made a difference.  Maybe not to those who are ignorant of facts, like most of the MAGA crowd, but they're not there to actually witness the difference anyway.  I am living in Chicago, and I love it, feel safe, and I can tell the crime rate is going down without Trump's help.  

We need leaders who can see through the thin veneer of Trump's calling out the National Guard to Washington, and to taking control of the police.  A mid-term election is coming up.  I think he will use these tools to keep Democrats from taking the seats they apparently are going to win back in the House and Senate, in a big way.  That ends the MAGA, Heritage Foundation 2025 agenda.  He's told us a thousand different ways and a hundred different times he's going to rig and steal elections in his favor.  

Maybe we should believe him?