If you want a glimpse of the America that Hillary Clinton’s policies could produce, you can start by looking at what Barack Obama has done—or refused to do—in cities across the country where violent crime has exploded with a fury we haven’t seen in decades.
In case you missed the news, the FBI reported last month that violent crime increased in 2015 by 4 percent—and murders by 10 percent—in a sharp reversal from decades of decline.
And although the 10 percent spike in murders is driven mostly by 10 big cities, it’s worth noting that many of America’s most violent cities—from Baltimore to Oakland, and Newark to Chicago—are enclaves of the kind of anti-gun-but-soft-on-criminals ideology that Hillary Clinton vows to impose at the national level.
More than anything else, this mindset is characterized by inconsistency—where there’s one set of laws for one group of people, law-abiding gun owners for example, and another set of laws for another set of people, violent criminals being the best example.
In other words, while Hillary Clinton and her fellow elitists in positions of power either exempt themselves from the law, or change the law after it’s been passed to give themselves a loophole—they also impose more and more laws that punish law-abiding people, while refusing to enforce existing laws against those who terrorize and traumatize our country.
You can see it with Obamacare.
You can see it on immigration, where President Obama plays political games by refusing to enforce immigration laws, or to close off our southern border to the drug cartels—a policy that Hillary Clinton vows to continue through what the head of the Center for Immigration Studies calls “the most radical immigration plan ever put down on paper by a candidate.”According to a study by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, nearly 40 percent of those arrested in 2015 for homicide had already been arrested for firearm offenses.
You can see it in Hillary Clinton’s own apparent lawlessness; her habitual lying; and her arrogant, imperious refusal to abide by the same laws that everyone else is bound to obey.
And you can see it in places like Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago, where criminals run rampant with impunity, where police are afraid to enforce the laws, where the White House has made it a matter of institutional policy not to enforce the federal gun laws—and where, as a result, honest citizens are forced to live in fear of criminals on one side, and politicians on the other.
As we’ve reported here, Chicago is now enduring an explosion of murders, shootings and violent crime. Right now, the city is on track to have its most violent year in decades.
There are plenty of existing laws that Obama and the political elites could use to shut down the violence in Chicago. But they refuse to enforce them. Every year, Chicago police seize thousands of illegally owned firearms from criminals, yet they refuse to enforce the federal laws that could put those criminals behind bars literally 99 percent of the time.
When authorities flout their responsibility to stop these criminals, those criminals are then free to commit their next murder. According to a study by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, nearly 40 percent of those arrested in 2015 for homicide had already been arrested for firearm offenses.
And the problem has gotten worse: Under Obama, federal gun prosecutions nationwide have declined by more than a third, and if you look at every federal judicial district in America, Chicago ranks almost dead last in federal gun law prosecutions.
One of the only federal judicial districts with an even worse record on federal gun prosecutions is central California, home of San Bernardino, which not surprisingly has a murder rate even higher than Chicago’s. That same federal judicial district is also home to the California cities of Anaheim—whose murder rate increased by 64 percent between 2008 and 2015—and Long Beach—where murders increased 57 percent between 2014 and 2015.
Hillary Clinton can make lofty speeches about “open borders,” but open borders have paved the way for Mexican drug cartels to move into every city of America. Obama’s own Justice Department admits that those drug syndicates “partner with more than 100,000 documented street gang members to advance their criminal activities” in Chicago alone—and yet Obama, and Clinton, and their fellow Democrats vow to continue with the same dangerous policies, or open our borders even more.
And the fact is, Chicago is far from alone. The same blame-guns-but-set-criminals-free mentality terrorizes innocent citizens in cities across the country.
Indeed, as Front Page magazine pointed out in July:
“America's ten most dangerous cities—as measured by federal crime statistics—have one highly notable feature in common: All are led politically by Democratic mayors. Most, in fact, have been controlled by Democrats for a very long time. For example, Detroit, which in 2015 ranked as the nation's most dangerous city, has not had a Republican mayor since 1961. The second most dangerous city in 2015 was Oakland, California, a Democrat stronghold since 1977. Third was Memphis, in Democratic hands since 1991. Fourth was St. Louis, which has been led exclusively by Democratic mayors since 1949.”
Where does this lawlessness lead? Again, Chicago presents a frightening possible future scenario.And so on, from Baltimore, Md., and Newark, N.J., to the California coasts. Where does this lawlessness lead? Again, Chicago presents a frightening possible future scenario.
Today, Chicago is a place where a 71-year-old man can be robbed and murdered on his front lawn, but if he tries to get a gun to defend himself, he’d better have connections to the rich and powerful political elite.
It’s a place where the Right-to-Carry is supposedly the law of the land —but authorities have erected so many roadblocks to the Second Amendment that joggers are forced to rely on plastic picnic knives to defend themselves from the criminals those same authorities refuse to put away.
It’s a place where a PCP-addled convicted felon with multiple weapons arrests can beat a policewoman’s head into the pavement for several minutes—and put her in fear for her life—yet she’s more afraid of defending herself than of allowing the beating to continue. Meanwhile, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson says he wants to “de-escalate situations” even more.
Yet Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats continue to push the same suicidal policies.
They’re pushing to free thousands of convicted felons from federal and state prisons.
Obama is commuting the sentences of hundreds of federal inmates—even convicted gun offenders—while Hillary Clinton pledges to reverse what she calls “excessive incarceration.”
Fellow Democrat Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, meanwhile, is trying to give 13,000 convicted felons the right to vote.
On and on it goes. It’s absurd. It’s frightening. And the fact that it’s being done simply for the sake of political expediency should make every American’s blood boil.
Where does it all lead?
A look at history here can be instructive. This kind of lawlessness—from selective prosecution to the institutionalized executive nullification of laws—is one of the most definitive markers of tyranny.
It’s also worth noting that throughout history, disconnected and self-serving political elites have also used this kind of lawlessness to accumulate and consolidate power for themselves.
As we’ve seen in Latin America and elsewhere, it’s often part of a deliberate strategy to allow to the people to be terrorized by criminals, or terrorists, or rogue elements of law enforcement, all in an attempt to undermine popular respect for the rule of law, and to make the people so desperate for order that they’re willing to accept anything, even authoritarian rule, in the hope of deliverance—which, of course, they never get.
All they get is a world where the lawless who rule them, and the lawless who prey upon them, become harder and harder to distinguish.
So be careful what you vote for on November 8—because you just might get it.
