Daley is right. It is a Mack truck with a belt-fed transferable mounted on the hood.

To my knowledge, the recent crime wave is "red on red", bad guys shooting other bad guys.

So, why do the police need bigger guns? They're not the target. And certainly, any Tom, Dick or Harry Copper on the beat who has an assault weapon, is NOT going to go all Rambo on that group of Latin Kings on the corner. They won't do it now, and a bigger gun won't make them anymore inclined to do it later. They aren't paid enough to die for Chicago.

However, walking around the Loop, by yourself, with an AR over your shoulder, is quite likely to get you shot in the back.

This policy fits perfectly with hopolophobes belief that guns are intimidating and therefore dangerous.

I thought most police already had a rifle in their cruiser. A pistol makes sense for unexpected encounters, a rifle is the weapon of choice when you know they're going to shoot back.

"When they come to a scene, someone has a semi-fully-automatic weapon, and you have a little pistol, uh, good luck."

In fairness, it sounds to me like he was correcting himself on the fly. A proper transcript might have said "semi-... uh.. fully-automatic weapon."

Ben:

You give Daley too much undeserved credit.

This is the same person who said "Why is it that when you sell guns, you don't need a license to sell guns?" He was saying it in the context of vehicle driver licenses...given that if you needed a license to drive a car, you should also need a license to sell guns.

Sigh.

>>>In fairness, it sounds to me like he was correcting himself on the fly. A proper transcript might have said "semi-... uh.. fully-automatic weapon.

Ah, yesss...

I agree that he was probably "correcting himself on the fly".

He just momentarily forgot the Sugarmann dictum about taking advantage of the "confusion" the general public has between semi-automatics and full-automatics when snarking about "assault weapons".

Gotta watch out for those "high-powered" assault rifles.

i don't see how you're going to have time to get anything at all out of your boot when someone opens fire on your cruiser with an AK-47 or even a semiauto lookalike.

Fox News did a brief report on this today, and, unfortunately, it was extremely slanted against so-called "assault" weapons. It basically used the entire article linked here and read it verbatim.

But . . . but . . . but . . . Chicago has GUN CONTROL!? There ARE no guns in criminal hands there, right?

So . . . the cops need rifles to combat a population without arms? I'm confused . . . . .

You couldn't pay me enough to live in Chicago.

As in many other cities, the political class is only comfortable with guns in the hands of criminals (because the politicians have security details and don't live in dodgy areas), cops and campaign contributors/other glitterati, fellow travelers of the polticians who they trust and need.

This move would make more sense if Chi PD was regularly in firefights with the bad guys, as in Tijuana. I read nothing of such engagements, but maybe they happen.

An M4 is not helpful in bagging bodies, writing reports and trying to find witnesses. This is what Chi PD's main duties are on violent weekends.

A supply of Bic pens and more paper would appear to be more useful.

Ah, Mayor Richie {the lesser} Daley, just like his father, he too wants to 'preserve dis order.'

About time, give the police what they need, the street is getting more dangerous, and too many children are dying, and You can't blame the cpd for not putting themselves out there,at risk if you don't supply them with better weapons and the power to use them if needed.

bernard is an idiot, nyah, nyah,nyah nyah.