So, whenever I post about guns on Slog, someone uses the ad hominem fallacy to counter-"argue" by pointing out that I live in Chicago, which until recently had one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and Chicago is in Illinois, where we're the last state in the nation that doesn't allow concealed carry (for a few more months—that law was recently struck down). Yet there are still shootings in Chicago!

And lots of them. Just Xmas day into this morning, 1 dead, 5 wounded. No shooters in custody.

So, the gun nuts say, SEE! Gun Control Doesn't Work. Look at all of these shootings in Chicago Fan's home town! Bad guys have guns that are illegal, and still use them, so I need my legal guns.

But here's the deal: these illegal guns were all at one point or another legally purchased. Then they were stolen, or sold by straw buyers to gang-bangers. The argument that we must have legal guns to prevent the threat posed to the law-abiding by illegal guns is bullshit. ALL GUNS START OUT AS LEGAL GUNS. It's not like Smith and Wesson or Glock have a special catalog for criminals.

If we eliminate legal guns—and it will take a generation of guns not being legally available, guns being confiscated after crimes and melted down, guns being bought back by government—then we won't have nearly as many illegal guns. And we will have less gun bloodshed, both routine (one night in Chicago, Ho Ho Ho!) and extreme (one school-day in Newtown).

And you folks who admire and respect cops (as I do, as the son, brother, nephew, cousin, and friend of many cops): dig this website, which lists all police personnel killed in 2012. 47 of them died by gunfire, out of 125 listed, and the list has only been updated through early December, so it missed the two killed this week.