By Gerard Valentino

Five more of my hometown brethren were killed this weekend, just outside Chicago at a Lane Bryant clothing store in Tinley Park. Unlike many cities, Chicago’s suburban population never admits they are from Cicero, or Naperville, or Westmont, they always say they are from Chicago. Many old northern cities have evolved to the point where the main city became irrelevant, like Detroit, MI or my current hometown, Columbus, OH, yet Chicago has always been central to the suburb’s identity.

The anti-gun culture prevalent in the Chicago Mayoral administration and years of vilifying gun owners is also part of Chicago’s culture. A sad situation that make pro-gun Chicagoans seethe with anger because year after year it is one of the murder capitals of the world. Still, Mayor Richard Daley chooses to disarm Chicago’s law-abiding population without doing a thing to stem the tide of murders, rapes and robberies committed against those he disarmed.

By Don B. Kates Jr.

Are this year’s U.S. presidential candidates avoiding the gun issue?

Last week, San Francisco’s First District Court of Appeal struck down that city’s two-year-old law that confiscated all handguns and rendered all other guns useless by banning ammunition sales. And on March 9 of last year, a federal court of appeals invalidated District of Columbia laws that banned handguns and precluded keeping any gun for defense in the home. That case is now in the Supreme Court, which many expect will hold that such laws violate the Constitution’s guarantee that law-abiding, responsible adults may have guns to defend their homes and families.

Ironically, though these laws represent the ultimate goals of the gun “control” (actually gun ban) movement, they epitomize that movement’s political downfall. For Democratic candidates, an Eleventh Commandment has evolved: “Don’t mention guns”—while formerly anti-gun Republicans Romney and Giuliani now declare themselves faithful advocates of gun rights.