New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton flagged Chicago's gun laws as one cause of the city's soaring murder rate this year.
"I think the problem, some of it has to do, as the superintendent of the police talked about, gun laws that just don't meet the reality of what's going on in those streets, and that's a significant factor," Bratton said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show.
Bratton cited the "sheer number of guns" seized in Chicago as twice the amount in Los Angeles and New York combined.
"That's a core issue there — the amount of guns and the failure of the laws and government to address that particular issue."
According to New York's Daily News, there have already been 500 murders in Chicago this year, compared with 236 in New York and 189 in L.A., which are both bigger in population. But the Chicago Tribune reports the number of shootings has soared too, with 2,949 this year through early September, compared with 2,988 in all of 2015.
"If we had the gun laws in Chicago that L.A. and New York have, we would see our violent crime cut in half," Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said recently, the Daily News reports.
"It's important that we all wrap our heads around what's going on here in Chicago," Johnson said to reporters on Tuesday. "We need to enact tougher penalties, so these individuals know their actions will not go without consequences. Until then, you're going to keep seeing the same results on the streets."
According to The New York Times, murder rates rose last year in 25 of the country's 100 largest cities. Chicago had the most homicides of any city at 488. One-fifth of Chicago murders occurred in only two police districts, District 11 on the West Side, and District 7 on the South Side.
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