A 20-year-old man was shot multiple times inside his own West Pullman home early Monday after two gunmen burst through his door and opened fire — another violent home invasion in a city where law-abiding residents are disarmed by policy while criminals face no shortage of firepower.
The victim was inside his residence on the 11800 block of South Princeton Avenue around 2:40 a.m. when the two armed intruders entered and started shooting, according to Chicago police. He was struck several times in the body and transported to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he remained in critical condition. The gunmen fled on foot. Area 2 detectives are investigating.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported the bare facts — the time, the location, the condition of the victim. What it didn't report is the policy context that makes scenes like this routine in Cook County: a progressive prosecution regime that has prioritized offender release over victim safety, layered on top of some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. Laws that only the law-abiding follow.
The Daily Caller, reporting on a separate atrocity this weekend, laid out the pattern in stark terms. In South Africa, at least 17 people were massacred in a Johannesburg-area tavern Saturday by eight gunmen wielding handguns and AK-47s — this in a country that requires prospective gun owners to obtain a competency certificate, pass a written test, complete firearms training, fill out an 11-page application, and then submit to a separate 12-page licensing process including fingerprints and a home inspection of their gun storage. A second mass shooting in Cape Town claimed ten more lives. Strict gun control did not slow down either crew of killers.
The parallel to Chicago is plain. Illinois requires a Firearm Owners Identification Card to so much as possess a gun. Chicago piled on additional restrictions for years before courts forced rollbacks. None of it stopped two gunmen from kicking in a door on Princeton Avenue at 2:40 in the morning and unloading on a man in his own home. Criminals don't fill out paperwork. They don't submit fingerprints. They don't wait for permits. The only people delayed by these regimes are the citizens who might defend themselves.
The gunmen in West Pullman remain at large. No arrests have been reported.
