Adam Toledo Shooting - Chicago, IL

[Lex Luthier]

Putting the shooting thing on back burner for a while, this is a messed up society.
When I was 13, forget gun, even carrying a pocket knife would be a big no no.
I know it's Chicago where guns are cheaper than a case of beer but this kid is just started to be a teen and already carrying firearm (or hanging with kids that carry firearm).

The age came to light after the incident and I've seen some kids that age bigger than grown ups.

This is Oliver Twist stuff, going back centuries at least. Criminal gangs have almost always recruited kids to confuse the authorities and to act as mules, lookouts and perform surveillance. You see it in pretty much any human society.

[blues]

This is Oliver Twist stuff, going back centuries at least. Criminal gangs have almost always recruited kids to confuse the authorities and to act as mules, lookouts and perform surveillance. You see it in pretty much any human society.

Yep. That's why the local gang I came up around, the Centurions, had their Junior Centurions...though I didn't realize what the catch was early on...in grade school.

[RevolverRob]

Putting the shooting thing on back burner for a while, this is a messed up society.
When I was 13, forget gun, even carrying a pocket knife would be a big no no.
I know it's Chicago where guns are cheaper than a case of beer but this kid is just started to be a teen and already carrying firearm (or hanging with kids that carry firearm).

The age came to light after the incident and I've seen some kids that age bigger than grown ups.

A lot of it just depends on where you grew up and lived. As a kid a pocket knife was normal for me in Texas.

___

As for guns here in Chicago...if people stopped leaving guns in cars, about 30% of the guns on the street would dry up. If the Feds actually worked hard to prosecute straw sales then there would be less guns out there too. Recent studies indicate about 40% of the guns recovered in crimes in 2019 came from straw sales from basically two gun shops within Illinois, just south and north of Chicago (not from Indiana, Wisconsin, and other states as the governor and others have said). A number we can look forward to seeing increase if Chipman is confirmed as ATF Director. I imagine they'll 'investigate' straw sales by introducing a whole new campaign ala Fast and Furious, maybe they'll call it, "Cubs and Sox".

[Suvorov]

During the Russian Revolution, the criminal element was given free reign by the revolutionary forces to make things really bad for the ordinary citizens, so they would submit to the change in leadership.

Bingo!

The whole point now is to burn it down.

From Chaos comes Order.

[Caballoflaco]

A lot of it just depends on where you grew up and lived. As a kid a pocket knife was normal for me in Texas.

___

As for guns here in Chicago...if people stopped leaving guns in cars, about 30% of the guns on the street would dry up. If the Feds actually worked hard to prosecute straw sales then there would be less guns out there too. Recent studies indicate about 40% of the guns recovered in crimes in 2019 came from straw sales from basically two gun shops within Illinois, just south and north of Chicago (not from Indiana, Wisconsin, and other states as the governor and others have said). A number we can look forward to seeing increase if Chipman is confirmed as ATF Director. I imagine they'll 'investigate' straw sales by introducing a whole new campaign ala Fast and Furious, maybe they'll call it, "Cubs and Sox".

My pronostication is they’ll end up going after gunstores for too many straw sales because there isn’t a willingness to jail the single moms who are doing the actual straw purchasing.

[RJ]

From Chaos comes Order.

Ok, hands up, who heard @Suvorov’s post this way?

[shootist26]

That's kind of my reading of the situation. Reports were "dozens" of protesters protested last night. However, tonight is the planned protest and we'll see. But most Chicagoans seem to view this as unfortunate, but an unfortunate extension of reality.

Even the outrage by the Wokesters is dialed back tremendously on this. Which is a trend I tend to observe whenever it's obvious the person shot had a weapon and it's visible on tape.

Today's breakdown in the paper included an actual piece by police UoF expert on reaction times and decision making. There was also a frame-by-frame breakdown of the key few seconds of the footage, highlighting the gun in Toledo's hand. Even the Op-Ed piece noted "Police work is dangerous, there is no doubt. We challenge the average Chicagoan to run down a dark Chicago alley at 2:45am chasing someone who was armed."

Even the Aldermen and the Mayor aren't calling it disgusting like they did George Floyd or the Kyle Rittenhouse situation.

It all kind of points to a general sense of, "This sucks. But the cop saw a gun, there was a gun, there was a foot chase. And this 13-year old kid shouldn't have been out on the street at 2:45am. Parents and our community failed him."

As opposed to, "He was an angel attending choir practice and the cops murdered him in cold blood!"

You're certainly more of an optimist than I am. I have bad feelings about this weekend in chicago

[Maple Syrup Actual]

A lot of it just depends on where you grew up and lived. As a kid a pocket knife was normal for me in Texas.

This was also true for me, I don't know how old I was when I got my first pocket knife in mid-sized town Canada. Between six and eight. Totally normal. I took it to school, I never thought about it at all. I had pocket knives my whole life. Lots of boys had swiss army knives. I think it was pretty standard that when boys went from Beavers to Cubs they'd get a swiss army knife; I'm not certain because I wasn't in scouts but lots of kids at my school were and I think that's how it went.

This would have been the mid-1980s.

[peterb]

This was also true for me, I don't know how old I was when I got my first pocket knife in mid-sized town Canada. Between six and eight. Totally normal. I took it to school, I never thought about it at all. I had pocket knives my whole life. Lots of boys had swiss army knives. I think it was pretty standard that when boys went from Beavers to Cubs they'd get a swiss army knife; I'm not certain because I wasn't in scouts but lots of kids at my school were and I think that's how it went.

This would have been the mid-1980s.

In the US there were official Cub Scout and Boy Scout knives when I was that age. Cubs start early in elementary school.
Still is: https://www.scoutshop.org/cub-scout-...de-615775.html

[Caballoflaco]

This was also true for me, I don't know how old I was when I got my first pocket knife in mid-sized town Canada. Between six and eight. Totally normal. I took it to school, I never thought about it at all. I had pocket knives my whole life. Lots of boys had swiss army knives. I think it was pretty standard that when boys went from Beavers to Cubs they'd get a swiss army knife; I'm not certain because I wasn't in scouts but lots of kids at my school were and I think that's how it went.

This would have been the mid-1980s.

I didn’t know there were schools where 12 and 13 y.o. kids weren’t selling and using drugs and alcohol at school and outside of school with all the various activities that go along with that until I met people who lived in less economically diverse areas than me. It wasn’t all the kids of course, but I didn’t know that all schools didn’t have a thriving black market for drugs until I got older and when I told people where I was from more than a few would say “oh that’s where we would go to get x-drug before a big party”.