Parkland shooting survivor, conservative pundit dispute impact of Indiana gun laws on Chicago

Cameron Kasky Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Cameron Kasky speaks at a rally for gun control at the Broward County Federal Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on February 17, 2018.

These two couldn't disagree more on the issue of gun control. And yet they were able to keep the conversation civil on — of all places — Twitter.

Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the mass shooting in February that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., tweeted that the source of Chicago's gun violence was its proximity to Indiana, a state that he says has "embarrassing gun laws."

The 17-year-old has become an advocate for gun control since the Feb. 14 tragedy and has seen his Twitter following grow to nearly 300,000 users. Hundreds replied to Kasky's initial tweet, including Ben Shapiro, the editor-in-chief of the conservative news and opinion site, The Daily Wire.

Shapiro, who is followed by 1.25 million on Twitter, responded by asking for clarification on why Kasky believed Chicago's homicide rate was higher than Indiana's.

Kasky wrote back with a link to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlining the firearm death rate in each state. The report said that in 2016, Indiana had a rate of 15 firearm deaths per 100,000 people, while Illinois' rate was 11.7.

Shapiro circled back to the original message in Kasky's tweet, saying Kasky blamed Chicago's gun violence on Indiana's laws, so the new information "doesn't change the fundamental point."

In his final response, Kasky didn't directly respond to Shapiro's point, but responded to others who said he was "trying to 'burn' Ben," saying he was "just bringing up facts." Shapiro, in turn, tweeted his appreciation of Kasky's willingness to be in a conversation.

Did the exchange lead to a better understanding of whether Indiana's gun laws impact gun violence in Chicago? Not really. The issue needs more context than what can be provided in 280 characters.

Chicago once had arguably the toughest gun laws in the country, but that has changed. It had banned residents from owning a handgun, but the ban was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010. Chicago's prohibition on licensed gun stores from operating in the city also was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in 2014.

In a comparison of the two states, Illinois requires that you have a Firearm Owners Identification card, issued by the State Police, for you to legally own firearms or ammunition. Illinois also requires a license to carry a concealed firearm.

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Contrast this to Indiana, where gun owners aren't required to have a license and there's no requirement to register a handgun, rifle or shotgun. (The state does have a license-to-carry requirement.)

The city of Chicago's 2017 Gun Trace Report, released last fall, said, "it is self-evident that the availability of illegally circulated firearms in Chicago is directly connected to its
deadly street violence. … Certain retailers and jurisdictions disproportionately account for the guns trafficked into Chicago that sustain its illegal gun market
and associated violent crime. " 

That report found that between 2013 and 2016, 21 percent of "crime guns" used in the city came from Indiana, the most of any state. The report defines a crime gun as a firearms recovered by police that was illegally possessed, used or suspected to be used in furtherance of a crime.

However, the report also said the majority of federally licensed dealers for the source of crime guns recovered in Chicago — seven of the top 10 such dealers — were located in Illinois, with most of those from Cook County suburbs surrounding the city. The remaining three source dealers in the top 10 were located in Northwest Indiana. The report said those top 10 dealers account for nearly one-quarter of crime guns recovered in Chicago during that period.

When President Barack Obama highlighted the guns-over-the-state-line problem in 2015, the National Rifle Association drew attention to the enforcement of laws against illegal gun ownership. The group referenced a Chicago Sun-Times story that found felons in Chicago who had a gun illegally, typically received sentences on the low end of state sentencing guidelines.

“If the president held a press conference tomorrow morning and directed every federal jurisdiction to round up every felon with a gun, drug dealer with a gun and criminal gangbanger with a gun, law enforcement would have thousands of violent thugs in handcuffs and squad cars by sundown,” Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said in a video response to Obama’s speech at the time.

Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel has called for state lawmakers to further increase gun control by requiring gun dealers to be licensed and banning  bump stocks. After the city's homicide rate peaked at 758 in 2016, it fell to 650 in 2017.

The reason for the decline was praised and attributed to technology, more police and "reinvigorating community police efforts" by Chicago police. But experts say it's too soon to make the connection between one approach being more effective than another.

Call IndyStar digital producer Dwight Adams at (317) 444-6532. Follow him on Twitter: @hdwightadams.

Nate Chute is a producer with IndyStar. Follow him on Twitter at @nchute.