Last week a Chicago City Council member latched on to what she thought was the perfect response to the Windy City’s skyrocketing violent crime problem.
Alderwoman Maria Hadden studied the problem at some length and proposed a daily time out, an idea she’d picked up from the community group Native Sons in an email newsletter.
She proposes that no firearms may be discharged between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.
During the other 12 hours fire at will.
As harebrained as this scheme sounds, Hadden’s proposal, which was named "The People’s Ordinance," earned some support from Native Sons co-founder Tamara Atkins.
"If people know that after a certain hour, the likelihood of them being shot by an unknown and unprovoked assailant are at a higher risk, they will be less likely to be out and about, and they may become more proactive with the supervision of their children," Atkins said of the proposal.
"At the end of the day, five-year-olds are being killed by gun violence, 14-year-olds are being killed by gun violence, 78-year-olds are being killed by gun violence, pregnant women are being killed by gun violence, young boys with bright futures are being killed by gun violence, fathers are being killed by gun violence, and this shouldn’t be happening," she added.
Besides, "we have to start somewhere," Atkins concluded.
Well sure, "we have to start somewhere," but can’t we at least put some thought into the problem?
Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York described it more accurately.
"In crime-plagued Chicago, city council member has a plan," he tweeted: "Let's designate 12 hours of each day for murders and not do any shooting the other 12."
Maybe it’s something in the water, but their refusal to confront the issue of gun violence head-on has become a trend in Chicago.
Last year the Chicago Police Department announced a new policy to ban law enforcement officers from pursuing either armed offenders, or those who may have committed minor offenses. The policy applied to foot pursuits.
They may give chase if the suspect is committing or is about to commit a serious crime, defined as a felony or a Class A misdemeanor.
"People may avoid contact with a member for many reasons other than involvement in criminal activity," the policy states.
That policy has apparently been expanded to vehicular chases.
Early this month Chicago cops radioed that they had located robbery suspects that they’d been searching for driving around the area. "And, once again, Chicago police supervisors ordered the cops to terminate efforts to pull the robbers over,"CWB Chicago reported.
As any grade-school kid who’s played the game of "Cops and Robbers" knows, the way it’s done is the robber tries to elude capture, and the cop gives chase. That’s the only way he can be apprehended and placed under lock and key.
If a 7-year-old kid knows that, why can’t a fully grown adult?
"This is not rocket science," observed Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of RealClearPolitics. "When you don't arrest criminals, you get more crime."
But it gets even worse.
Like many other large, Democratic-controlled cities, Chicago is plagued by flash mobs compromised of hundreds of teens, descending upon stores — especially high-end luxury establishments — and quickly making off with thousands of dollars-worth of merchandise.
Early this month new Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson cautioned reporters to avoid using the word "mob" to describe these gangs of marauding adolescents.
"That’s not appropriate. We’re not talking about mob actions," Johnson said.
"We have to be careful when we use language to describe certain behavior. There’s a history in this city, and, I mean, to refer to children as like baby Al Capones is not appropriate."
He suggested that the term "gathering" might be better.
Maybe "Hoards of heathen savages"?
No?
In 2019 Lori Lightfoot won all 50 Chicago wards to become the city’s 56th mayor. On Feb. 28 Chicagoans overwhelmingly rejected Lightfoot’s woke, soft-on-crime policies and Johnson, another progressive, faced off against moderate Paul Vallas.
Vallas campaigned on a pro-police, anti-crime message, and the voters’ rejection of Lightfoot gave his supporters hope that Chicago was waking up.
But it was not to be. Chicago chose more crime.
Voters got what they voted for; they got what they deserved.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.