Chicago Mayor Daley offers to shoot reporter to prove gun ban works

Who are we to criticize a politician's choice of words?  It's a tough job.  You have to be expressive to get your message out.

Is the best way to demonstrate the benefits of gun control by picking up a rifle and offering to shoot a reporter?

Leave that to the PR experts.  What do we know?

But that apparently was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's strategy.

At a news conference to discuss Chicago's gun ban and the Supreme Court's pending ruling on the issue, a reporter from the Chicago Reader asked him if the ban was effective.

"Since guns are readily available in Chicago even with a ban in place, do you really think it’s been effective?" asked Mick Dumke.

“Oh!” Daley said. “It’s been very effective!”

He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.

“If I put this up your—ha!—your butt—ha ha!—you’ll find out how effective this is!”

“If I put a round up your—ha ha!”

Dumke said the room became "very, very quiet" before reporters realized he was joking.

Daley's press flak said the mayor didn't regret the remarks but said by offering to place the gun in the reporter's rear end "could admittedly be considered a less-than-ideal example."

-- Jimmy Orr

Photo: Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (before offering to shoot a reporter). Credit: Associated Press

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Comments

[Mark]

See what kind of idiot politicians are here in Chicago. I think every politician in Chicago should be forced to do two terms. 1 in office and one in prison. I think the reporter should have had Dick Daly locked up for threatning him with a weapon.

[DDS -- NRA Life Member]

Unbelieveable!

No... Not the mayors antics. The part I find unbelieveable is that the people of Chicago keep returning him to office. Are they that hard up for comic relief?

[Anonymous]

Firstly, if a gun ban were truly implemented rather than the double-standard "ban" that exists in Chicago, Mayor Daley wouldn't have a rifle to demonstrate with. Secondly, if they weren't banned it would be highly unlikely Mayor Daley would dare point a gun at anyone for fear of that person pointing one right back at him in self-defense.

Chicago's gun-based violence speaks for itself. Criminals will obtain guns whether they're legal or not - it's the nature of being a criminal. Banning them will only prevent law abiding citizens from protecting themselves against these thugs.

Corrupt Chicago politics at its finest folks.

[David]

If guns are so bad and have no use for self-defense, as Mayor Daley claims, why then does he have an armed police escort where ever he goes? Why is his self-protection more important that any other Chicago citizen's?

[Kristopher]

He was not really joking.

His offer would prove that Chicago gun control works at its design function: Disarming uppity peasants like that reporter, so that goons in power like Daley can shoot them should they forget their place.

[Roy Sanderson]

Daley can't even control his own people. He should go to ireland and do what he can over there. That's were he belongs. He is trying to walk in his fathers shoes but he will never be able too.

[Matt G.]

Doesn't matter if he was chuckling. That was a criminal threat committed by the mayor of one of the USA's biggest cities.

Truth is again stranger than fiction. You wouldn't believe this scene if it played out in a movie.

[shark60]

Just shows what a big idiot he is!

[John]

Mr Daley, you are under arrest for aggravated menacing.

[Ron NRA Endowment life member and voter]

Mayor daley is without a doubt an idiot. He commited & should be arrested for the following crimes.
1: posessing an un registered weapon within city limits, (Chicago law)
2: unlawfull use of a weapon, (Illinois law)
3: Possesion of a firearm without a state issued FOID card (Illinois law)
unless he has one, in which case it should be revoked
He should also be investigated for the possiblity of possesion of a stolen weapon, attmpted murder, and commiting an act of threatening bodily harm.
Any or all of these would get the average citizen aressted immediatly.

[JustinC]

What a disturbed man? How would that prove anything anyway? This guy is why Chicago is a dump, riddled with crime, and destined for failure.

[Reporter With A Gun]

King Richard - oh how I wish the reporter would have responded with:

"you won't shoot me because I have a concealed weapons permit and I will defend myself!"

Daley proves again he is totally lost-in-space and lives in fairy tale land!