First diary here (you have been warned)-started off as a comment to Georgia L.'s great http://www.dailykos.com/... (link?!?)
As a Chicago native (south and north-side) and pretty mouthy gun restrictionist, I've spend the past month or so (post Sandy Hook) fending off FA-fetishists on FB (where I yak most) who try (and fail-pffft) to pillory my long-held stance with "the Chicago".
What often gets lost/is never addressed in "the Chicago", is the 2008-9+ economic collapse (for a lot of people in my neighborhood/s - just the latest collapse) really hit the drug trade hard-and if you think its not a part of the overall economy (urban, suburban and rural), then perhaps you'd be interested in an over-priced, stripped of plumbing condo on a block of abandoned tear-downs-cash only courtesy of BoFA. When the best customers, the weekend warriors who had decent jobs, cut back, then the turf battles started.
But it wasn't always like this in Chicago (more below the sleeping orange panda thingy)
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