While we’ve been watching this story unfold throughout the year with growing alarm, the city with some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation is finishing up 2016 with the highest murder rate seen in decades. On Christmas Day, an unnamed 18 year old man driving through the Gage Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side was fatally shot multiple times in the neck and in the back. He was one of seven people murdered and 27 people shot in the Windy City just over Christmas weekend. And that, as the New York Times reports, brings the death toll to a level unseen since the big crackdown on crime in the 90s.

At least 27 people were shot, seven fatally, in a 48-hour period in Chicago over Christmas weekend, according to the Chicago Police Department. It was the latest bloody chapter in a city besieged by gun violence…

Officer Jose Estrada, a spokesman with the Chicago Police Department, said in a telephone interview on Sunday that the total number of homicides so far this year was 745, a 56 percent increase from 476 at the same time last year.

This year was the first time in nearly two decades that more than 700 homicides had been recorded in the city, The Chicago Tribune reported this month.

Officer Estrada said the total number of shooting victims so far stood at 4,252, up 47 percent from 2,884 at the same time in 2015.

With one week left to go in 2016 Chicago has now seen nearly 270 more murders than they did last year… a 56% increase. And among those who were shot and somehow managed to survive, the numbers weren’t much less grim. The Chicago Tribune keeps a running log of the total shootings each week and right now the data is nothing to celebrate. Check out these totals.

At this point, what is there left to say? Chicago remains under the control of Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats as it generally has for as long as most of us can remember. But the underlying reality is that the Windy City is apparently controlled by its gangs. The tough restrictions on gun sales and ownership put in place by Democrats have done nothing, zero, zilch and nada to stem the tide. The leadership has failed in its mission. Attacks on the police from within the city government have not miraculously led to less crime on the streets.

This could still be turned around, even though it would take some time and the dedication required to put resources in the right place. It’s been done before in other cities. But as the old saying goes, the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one. If the residents of the city continue electing the same old tools of the same party who continue spouting the liberal, namby-pamby policies which have been place for a generation, nothing will change and the death toll will continue to mount. Chicago needs more police with better resources and training. They need municipal government leaders who will stand with the police and on the side of law and order. That’s all going to cost money, so they’ll need to find a way to curb their pension dependent system and start channeling funds into saving their city from turning into an outpost in a Mad Max film.

But for today, I suppose all that the rest of us can do is pray for the people of Chicago. It’s the citizens – and generally the poorest ones at that – rather than the politicians who are suffering under the weight of this crime wave.