Criminals Disregard Oak Park Handgun Ban as Armed Robberies Continue

It has become a weekly tradition for me to discuss the armed robberies and other crime that plagues Oak Park, IL, despite that village’s longstanding handgun ban.  This last week was sadly no different, with 5 armed robberies and 2 unarmed robberies reported:

Armed Robberies

  • On Monday morning, a gunman walked into the Oberweis Ice Cream shop on Oak Park Avenue and declared that “this is a stickup.” He first stole $80 from the cash register and then $700 from the safe, before instructing the employee to lay face down on the floor as he fled.
  • On Monday evening, two 16 year old boys from Forest Park and Chicago were arrested after attempting to rob a man on the 300 block of North Oak Park Avenue with a pellet gun, as the man was unloading groceries from his car.
  • Early on Wednesday afternoon, a post office employee was robbed by an armed criminal in the vestibule of a building on the first block of North Austin Boulevard. After the criminal threatened to shoot the postal employee, he gave up $141 and the criminal escaped.
  • On Wednesday at around 7:15 P.M., a man was traveling Westbound on the CTA Blue Line in Oak Park when two criminals displayed a handgun and demanded his money. The man gave up $60 and the robbers escaped.
  • On Wednesday, a boy was riding the Blue Line at about 8:25 P.M. when a pair of criminals pushed a handgun against his stomach and robbed him. The boy lost $20, his CTA card, and a laptop computer worth $1,100. The criminals escaped in this robbery as well.

Unarmed Robberies (of a sort)

  • On February 9, a woman on the 200 block of North Kenilworth around 5:30 a.m. was grabbed around the neck by a young male attacker who demanded her property. When the woman struggled and screamed, the suspect ran off and escaped.
  • An unidentified teen walked up behind a woman on the CTA Green Line platform at Austin, February 14, and snatched her iPhone from her hand as she talked on it.

Once again, this week’s crime in “gun free” Oak Park shows that passing a law which restricts gun ownership only effects the law abiding citizens, who weren’t going to commit a crime in the first place.  The people who will pistol whip, shoot, carjack, or rob innocent people won’t think twice about some municipal ordinance that tells them they can’t have a gun, just as they disregard the laws that prohibit armed robbery, murder, etc.  As a result, criminals know that Oak Park is where they can go to find unarmed victims, as criminals like easy targets and fear armed citizens who can defend themselves.

Finally, I would note that the idea of armed Oak Park citizens being better able to defend themselves that those that are unarmed is not just some hypothetical that I’ve come up with, but rather demonstrated fact.  Over the last year in Oak Park, there have been two reported cases of illegally armed people stopping a racist attacker and stopping an armed robber. These citizens were breaking both state and local laws by carrying a handgun, but by doing so they manged to save themselves from unprovoked and violent attacks.  It is a sad situation indeed when only those willing to break the law are able to defend themselves – and then have to fear prosecution for doing so.

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Comments (3)

  1. Are you an NRA member? If not, how are you defending our Second Amendment rights? Many of us are tired of carrying the water, so to speak, for all of the others who want to enjoy the liberties of the Constitution, but vote for those who seek to undermine it. If you don’t understand that the Second Amendment is the most important liberty we have then I fear you don’t have the understanding of freedom as you may think. If you do realize it, then you are actively destroying it with your voting pattern. That is not to say that every single Democrat is anti gun or every single Republican is pro gun, but by and large this is certainly the case. If you are not making the candidates position on guns and the Second Amendment, then you are part of the problem I regret to say.

  2. You should Google the recent article(s)about the police in Oak Park forming a “whistle stop”. What’s this? Incredibly,it’s the Chief of Police suggesting that citizens purchase whistles and blow them when they see a crime in progress. He also said that the local police will gladly escort you wherever you wish simply by asking them to do so. This smacks of Gomer Pyle’s “Citizen’s Arrest” on the Andy Griffith Show and the only place I want them to escort me is out of Oak Park. These people are morons.

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