Occasional commenter W.H. Thompson runs the invaluable heyjackass.com which meticulously chronicles the Windy City’s always astonishing crime, murder and mayhem. To hear Hizzoner the Godfather and his bootlicking police commissioner Garry “We’re Right and You’re Wrong” McCarthy tell it, Chicago crime is down. Yes, well tell that to the 53 people who were murdered (41 shot to death, 224 wounded) during August. To say nothing of 7,286 aggravated batteries, aggravated assaults and criminal sexual assaults. So how do the moguls who manage Mogadishu on Lake Michigan reconcile the fact that they have some of the toughest gun laws and, at the same time, the most horrific crime rates in the country? They mostly don’t. They do a little sidestep when presented with uncomfortable facts which contradict the civilian disarmament narrative. But when pressed, they dutifully adopt the Bloombergian misdirection tactic of blaming neighboring states for having egregiously “lax” firearm laws. Somehow the fact that those other states also have comparatively minuscule crime problems never gets mentioned, though. Probably just an oversight.