Political Quotes

“the random violence on the streets of Chicago results in Monday morning reports that break your heart: 100 people shot on the Fourth of July weekend; the following weekend, 50; the weekend after that, 70. It never stops. These mass shootings have become part of life in many cities across America, and it is a heartbreaking reality. There are many ways to look at it. I have tried my best to understand it and to respond from a legislative point of view, but as we kind of play the possibilities and debate the opportunities we have to change things, the killing just goes on and on. The city of Chicago, like many cities in the United States, is awash in guns--awash in guns. Police--I believe the statistic is--have confiscated 16,000 so far this year and still counting; thousands and thousands and thousands of guns. In the roughest parts of Chicago, you wave a couple of $20 bills and you have a handgun in a matter of minutes. And there really is no age check involved; and young kids, as much as older folks, buy these guns right and left, claiming they are for self-defense and many times just putting them into the machinery of crime and death that has become such a predictable part of life in that great city. Chicagoans across every possible demographic this morning are shocked and grieving to learn that another Chicago police officer was killed in the early morning hours. The slain officer was just 29 years old--29.…”