Once more into the breach, my boys and girls, once more!  It’s gather-the-troops time for a workday protest rally in the Loop about guns because of shooting deaths on the South Side.  Father Pfleger and Saint Sabina (pray for us) to the rescue!

We are asking people to join us once again at the State of Illinois
Building on Tuesday, April 1st, from 11:00 am to noon. We will gather every time a child is killed in this city at the door of our state
government to demand common sense gun laws. If you can join us, or need to ride the bus from Saint Sabina, call the church at
773-483-4300. Please help us stop this madness!

That’s from an emailed announcement.  But look what’s happening: a pro forma (once again) protest (yawn) in front of the state building but nothing at the building across the street, where the mayor works.  Nothing at cop headquarters at 35^th & Michigan (much closer to the St. Sabina neighborhood), where the people work who are primarily responsible for keeping people from getting shot.

By such meaningless photo-op demonstrations, the anger of the community is siphoned off.  Father Pfleger leads his flock astray, by 35 blocks in this case, to the Loop and not Cop HQ, where the new commissioner has bright, headline-grabbing ideas about weight control for policemen and SUVs instead of beefed-up Ford Victorias. 

We have just received word that another of our school students was shot and killed at Simeon High School [officially, Career Academy, former Chicago Vocational School, CVS]

says the emailed announcement.  Was shot and killed by whom?  By some bad, twisted people whom it is whose business to prevent from shooting people?  Or to catch after the fact?  Compstat helped in NYC under Guiliani.  Won’t work in Chicago? 

Look: Madame deFarge knitted while the tumbrels rolled on their way to the guillotine,  Maybe if gang-bangers were submitted to some such humiliation (short of decapitation), there would be less shooting.  Crackdown on gangs, anyone?

But would that fly with the families of gang-bangers, some of whom could well be joining the St. Sabina protest in favor of stricter gun laws? 

How about a crackdown on street crime, Mr. Weis?  Would he dare to use such language, diverting attention from impersonal laws and focusing on perpetrators?  Would the mayor join in, or would he rather rage also in favor of gun control or scold nameless parents?  He’s not their uncle, he’s their elected official.