If you were in the Windy City over the holiday weekend I’m guessing that you had a hard time getting around to the various parties and fireworks displays because of all the traffic. Of course, much of it was not composed of tourists celebrating the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but police cars closing off blocks of the city while they tagged and photographed shell casings, mixed in with ambulances rushing bleeding victims to emergency rooms. In the four days including the Fourth of July, Chicago hit a grim milestone, with sixty people being shot and four dying of their wounds and 32 of those shootings took place in just the final 15 hours. (Chicago Tribune)

Thirty-two people were shot in 15 hours between about noon on Monday and 3 a.m. on Tuesday to end the July 4th weekend, doubling the total number of gunshot victims from the three previous nights, according to police.

Among the wounded were a 5-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy playing on an Englewood street and two adults who were nearby at the time, according to police…

The attacks raised the number of people shot in the city over the Fourth of July weekend to at least 60, according to data collected by the Tribune. Among those, four people were fatally shot over the weekend holiday.

Of the 60 shot over the weekend, 28 were wounded between about noon Sunday and 3 a.m. Monday morning.

Reading through that entire linked article is an exercise in revulsion which puts most Quentin Tarantino films to shame. The list of people, most of them innocent bystanders who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, is mind numbing. As of Tuesday morning the police still hadn’t even identified everyone who was gunned down.

Here’s a bit of a reality check for you. As bad as these numbers are, they didn’t even come close to the scores that gang members posted last year over the Independence Day weekend. The same period in 2015 saw 82 people shot with fifteen dead, including a seven year old child. So I suppose that if you’re a glass if half full sort of person you could say that Chicago has managed to cut their shooting rate by 27% in only one year. But holy cow, kids… if 60 people shot and four dead in 72 hours is your high water mark, there’s something seriously wrong.

And all of this is taking place in a city where there isn’t a single gun store left because the Democrats running the municipal and state governments have passed some of the toughest gun control laws in the country. Why, it’s almost as if these gangbangers don’t bother going through the normal system of background checks to purchase their weapons from legitimate gun dealers. But don’t worry, Chicago. The city fathers are still managing to keep weapons out of the hands of most of your law abiding neighbors who might actually be inclined to help you. I’m sure that will help you sleep better at night.