I caught this post over at the MDA Facebook page.

It links to this article from The Trace about how Indiana is responsible for the murders in Chicago and it’s all VP candidate Mike Pence’s fault.

This subject is something I know a lot about.  More than just about any other reporter or political hack (but I repeat myself) does.

Here are my credentials: I lived in Terre Haute, Indiana, 7 miles from the Illinois border, then lived in Aurora, Illinois in the Chicagoland MSA.  I was a gun owner in both Indiana and Illinois, and I had concealed carry permits from both states.  I have first hand experience with buying and carrying guns in Indiana, Illinois, and Chicago in particular.

Indiana is a fairly lax state when it comes to gun laws.  There is no permit to own or waiting period for Indiana residents.  Indiana concealed carry permits are easy to get.  There is no training required.  Fill out the application and take it to your local PD or Sheriffs department for a fingerprint check.  Assuming you are not a prohibited person and you pass the Indiana State Police fingerprint check, you will get your CCW in about 90 days (usually a lot less).  Mine cost me $15, but that was about 10 years ago.  It may have gone up in price.

Illinois is the opposite of Indiana.  You cannot own a firearm in the Land of Lincoln without a FOID (Firearms Owners ID).  To obtain one of those, you have to apply through the Illinois State Police.  The paperwork is pretty much a Form 4473, plus sending in a passport size picture, and $10.  Between 45 and 90 days later, you will receive a yellow card that says you can buy and own guns and ammo.  It is not a permit to carry.  To get a permit to carry, you have to fill out more paperwork, take 16 hours of training, and pay $150 to the state of Illinois.  The training usually runs $150 to $250 for a class.  The optional fingerprinting is another $60.  Fingerprinting takes your wait time down to about 30 days. Without it, it is closer to 90  days for the permit.  Then there is the cost of the 100 rounds of ammo you will need for the live fire qualifications.  I spent about $550 for the total cost of my IL CCW permit, not including the FOID I got the year before.

The biggest difficulty for permit holding, gun carrying citizens in Chicago is criss-crossing the many gun free “safe passage zones” in the city, and not entering the many business with 430 ILCS “no guns allowed” signs.  Carry your legal gun into one of these and get caught, and you lose your CCW and maybe even your FOID.  In some areas of the Chicago, you are better off not carrying and leaving your gun in your car, than risk becoming a criminal.  But that is the point.

This, of course, is what you do if you want to be a law abiding citizen.  If you are a gang member in Chicago and want to carry illegally all you have to do is tuck a gun somewhere and go for walk.  If you want to buy a gun in Chicago illegally, you find a cousin or fellow gang member or trafficker who is not a prohibited person and buy one from them.

The basics of this are simple, someone who is a resident of Indiana (or another border state) lawfully buys guns in Indiana, here and there, one at a time, at different stores, so not to attract attention.  He then drives into Chicago and sells them without a background check in a gang neighborhood.

It is harder if you are an Illinois resident.  Gun stores check your ID.  Long gun purchases in Indiana are legal, with a 24 hour waiting period.  Handgun purchases across state line are illegal.

Of course keep in mind that ALL NON FFL SALES OF FIREARMS ACROSS STATE LINES ARE A VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW.

The Obama administration fully admits that it doesn’t bother to prosecute these types of crimes.  For all the call by Democrats for universal background checks, the one thing that they don’t seem to discuss is how the Federal Government doesn’t actually punish people who violate current federal background check laws.

Apparently enforcing the law against criminals who want to break the law is just too much work.  It is much easier to criminalize more common behaviors and bust the law abiding citizens who accidentally violate the law and then claim victory for “doing something.”

While Obama and the media love to blame Indiana for Chicago’s gun violence, at the end of the day, this is a Chicago issue.  All the lax guns laws in Indiana don’t result in 4 people killed an 62 wounded in 4th of July weekend in Indianapolis.  Chicago saw 72 murders in June, 2016 alone.   There is a cultural rot in the heart of Chicago’s worst areas that make this kind of violence possible.  There is no amount of gun laws that could be put in place in Indiana that will change the values of the gangs of Chicago.

They blame Indiana for Chicago’s South Side, they lame Georgia, Virginia, and Florida for Brooklyn and the Bronx, they blame Texas for LA and Oakland.

This attack on the good people of Indiana is just deflection by the Left so as not to have to address the issues they created in America’s urban areas.

Our nation was created so that the states could make laws that best reflected the needs and values of the populations of the states.  What works in Florida doesn’t work in New York or Nebraska.  Attacking a state like Indiana, which makes laws that reflect on the needs and desires of the people of the Hoosier State for the shortcomings of the people of the Windy City is both a willful denial of the real problems Chicago faces as well as an attack on the principles on which America was founded.

But then, when as the Democrat party every been interested on really fixing problems or respecting America’s founding principles?