This is from Chicago, but methinks it happens everywhere. We know it happens in California, almost as a rule. Politicians are human, after all.
Last week, the body of Chicago school board president Michael Scott was found in the Chicago River with a single bullet wound in his head. The big story was that this powerful, well-connected public official had, according to the county medical examiner, committed suicide. The less-noticed story was that he did it with an illegal weapon.
After all, handgun ownership is not allowed in the city of Chicago, which has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and Scott killed himself with a .380-caliber sidearm.
Unlike most Chicagoans, Scott could have been a legal handgun owner. Because he had it before the ban was enacted, he was allowed to register and keep it. But the police department says he never did. By having it in the city, Scott was guilty of an offense that could have gotten him jail time.
Amazingly enough, he was not the first local public official to take the view that firearms restrictions are something for other, ordinary people to observe. Chicago politicians are zealously committed to gun control in law but fairly relaxed about it in practice.
Read the whole thing for other stellar examples of illegally armed Chicago politicians. And see if you’re like me. My first reaction after reading this whole piece was to ask
“This is Chicago, right? Did Michael Scott have a .380 caliber bullet wound in his head?”
Just asking…
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