Illinois doesn’t have the most strict gun control laws on the books, but it’s really not for lack of trying. It’s just a matter of a few other states having far stricter laws already in place.

Much of that effort to restrict the right to keep and bear arms is because of Chicago. This is a city that pretty well dictates to the rest of Illinois how things are going to go. There’s a reason a lot of people from outside of the Windy City aren’t fans.

But all that gun control is probably helping Chicago be much safer, right? After all, gun control makes for less crime, or so we’re told. Chicago should be a perfect example of just that.

Wait…what?

It’s not? Say it ain’t so!

Huh. Well what do you know? It’s a violent hellscape instead. 

At least 36 people have been shot, eight fatally, in gun violence across Chicago so far this weekend, police said.

Two men were found shot to death inside a car on the city’s South Side on Sunday morning, Chicago police said.

Police said the men were discovered unresponsive in a Jeep Cherokee in the Calumet Park neighborhood’s 12300-block of South Halsted just after 8:30 a.m.

Both men appeared to have multiple gunshot wounds throughout their bodies and were pronounced dead on the scene, police said.

What led up to the shooting was not immediately clear. Police did not immediately provide further information.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

A 34-year-old man was shot and killed outside a Jewel grocery store in Old Town early Saturday, Chicago police said.

The victim was shot multiple times at around 2:30 a.m. outside the store near Sedgwick and Division.

He was rushed to Northwestern Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Police are searching for the shooter.

Area Three detectives are investigating.

Hours later, a 44-year-old man was shot to death on the city’s South Side, police said.

Who’d have thunk it?

Now, let’s think about the fact that eight people were killed and nearly 40 injured in what would be a horrific event in most places, but is just an ordinary weekend in Chicago.

Illinois has tons of gun control laws, and while officials there routinely blame other people for their problems, the fact remains that none of those gun control laws are actually working. Rather than looking at other ways to address violent crime, they just keep pounding on the idea of gun control, further restricting the rights of people in Illinois, even as they claim the fault lies in states like Indiana.

Never mind that those states aren’t as eat-up with violent crime as Chicago. Never mind that none of them had nearly 40 people shot this weekend and it not become a national tragedy.

Chicago is often held up as an example of how progressive policies, such as gun control, fail utterly and completely, and for good reason. 

The truth is that Chicago has failed Illinois and itself with this push to restrict the rights of the law-abiding. It’s disarmed those who would protect themselves and society and empower the criminals, then has the audacity to blame everyone else for its problems.