So Many Unsolved Murders in Gun-Free Chicago, It's Posting Photos of Unclaimed Bodies on its Website

Hey: anyone know how the nation's most restrictive gun control laws are working out?

For the first time, the Cook County medical examiner's office has posted photos of unclaimed bodies on their website in an effort to help identify them.

The program is generating some controversy because of the graphic images, but for the sake of people missing loved ones, this is a decision where the medical examiner believes the ends justify the means.

The site contains information about when the bodies were found and where, along with as much identifying information as possible—including, in some cases--photos of the victim's face.

Here's an idea. Perhaps Chicago could introduce a mobile app for identifying bodies. Of course, these kinds of innovations are only necessary because:

Only 132 of the 507 murder cases in the city last year were closed last year. That makes for a homicide clearance rate of 26 percent—the lowest in two decades, according to internal police records provided to Chicago. (The true picture is even worse; more on that later.) To put it another way: About three-quarters of the people who killed someone in Chicago in 2012 have gotten away with murder—so far, at least. “Those stats suggest a crisis,” says Arthur Lurigio, a criminologist at Loyola University Chicago...

...Last year’s department-wide consolidation and reorganization, initiated by Superintendent Garry McCarthy, has made a bad situation even worse. As one South Side detective put it: “It’s a perfect storm of s***.”

Strange as it may seem, the Obama administration is partially responsible. While the president endlessly agitates for more restrictions on firearms:

Obama's Chicago Dead Last In Federal Gun Prosecutions

A murdered Chicago teen's mother attends the president's speech on gun control, not knowing federal gun-crime prosecutions have in fact dropped on his watch — with the Windy City bringing up the rear... But President Obama did not tell this group that Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) shows that the Northern Illinois district ranked 90th out of 90 in prosecutions of federal weapons crimes per capita.

...there were 52 federal gun prosecutions in Illinois North (Chicago) in 2012, or 5.52 per million in population... the prosecution rate in Chicago was the lowest in the country.

Considering that there were 522 people murdered in Chicago in 2012, one would think that the documented lack of enforcement of existing gun laws by a president seeking more of them would be a national scandal.

"Why doesn't NBC News start with: 'Shocking news on Chicago. Of all the jurisdictions in the country, Chicago's dead last on enforcement of the federal gun laws?'" the NRA's Wayne LaPierre recently asked NBC host David Gregory, who once famously waved a banned ammunition clip on his show.

Gregory's response, if memory serves, was as follows: "Humina, Humina, Humina".


Hat tip: BadBlue Guns.