Rahm Emanuel On Gun Control: Nationwide Assault Weapons [Video]

Chicago, IL – In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling on Illinois, and the nation, to pass an outright ban on assault weapons, and to considerably change concealed carry laws in the US.

Emanuel has long been a proponent of strict gun control, even during his days as Chief of Staff for the Obama Administration, reports The Chicago Sun-Times. Now, like many others, he is reviving the issue of gun control in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting.

“There is no parent and no grandparent in America that is not a resident to Sandy Hook, Conn.,” Mayor Emanuel said at the dedication of a new Chicago police building on Saturday, reports NBC News. “There is nobody that had their child last night, that didn’t hold them a little closer, pull them in a little tighter, didn’t hug them a little more.”

“All of us are residents and citizens of Sandy Hook, Connecticut,” he continued. “And it is incumbent upon all of us to make sure that no child, no parent, no teacher, no principal, no community faces what they faced.”

“It’s time that we as a city have an assault weapons ban, it’s time that we as a state have an assault weapons ban, it’s time that we as a country have an assault weapons ban,” Emanuel said, according to The Chicago Tribune. “And I would hope the leadership in Congress now will have a vote of conscience. It is time to have that vote.”

These comments come from a man who holds political vigil over one of the most violent cities in the US. Despite some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, Chicago has been plagued by gangland crimes and gun-related violence, with over 400 homicides occurring in 2012, the worst in 10 years.The loss of human life in Chicago, IL, rivals that of even Kabul, Afghanistan. While most guns in Illinois are purchased legally, many are transferred illegally within the state.