If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, it’s likely that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson would at least get on the medal stand, if not win the gold outright.
In a recent news item, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which is the firearm industry trade association, chronicled how Johnson is spending taxpayer dollars to the tune of some $30 million a year for a personal armed security detail that includes as many as 150 Chicago Police Department officers while at the same time presiding over some of the most egregious gun laws in the nation for his subjects, er, I mean, citizens.
“Politicians in some of the country’s most restrictive gun control jurisdictions demand layers of armed protection for themselves, often at taxpayer expense, while demanding policies that make it increasingly harder for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights to defend themselves and their families,” wrote Larry Keane, NSSF vice president and general counsel. “Enter Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.”
As Keane pointed out, in Chicago, Johnson has backed some of Illinois’ most restrictive firearm policies.
“After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2023 reversed a lower court’s preliminary injunction against Illinois’ ban on so-called ‘assault-style weapons,’ or the popular Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) that are more common than Ford F-150 pickup trucks on the road, and other popular semiautomatic firearms, as well as state’s magazine restrictions, Mayor Johnson praised the ruling and called the law an ‘important step’ that would keep ‘weapons of war’ out of neighborhoods,” Keane wrote. “The practical message to Chicago residents was clear. Government officials and their armed details can enjoy armed personal protection, but the public should accept tighter limits on the tools of lawful self-defense.”
As Keane further wrote, this particular pattern is neither new nor limited to Chicago.
“In 2021, records show U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, spent nearly $137,000 on private armed security despite his well-known anti-police, anti-gun rhetoric,” Keane wrote. “In 2024, then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ questionable personal firearm ownership and round-the-clock protection stood in obvious tension with the strict gun control agenda she promoted for everyone else. It was a major platform plank of her failed presidential campaign. The phrase fits because the facts keep fitting: gun control for thee, not for me.”
Ultimately, whether in Chicago, Georgia, Washington, D.C., or anywhere else, politicians who understand the value of armed self-defense but won’t allow lawful Americans to practice that right are part of the violent crime problem, not the solution.
“In gun control strongholds across the country, anti-gun politicians continue to prove they believe armed security is a necessity for those in power and a problem for everyone else,” Keane concluded. “The Second Amendment was not written for mayors, councilmembers, or political insiders. It was written for the people, and no amount of taxpayer-funded security can hide the hypocrisy of officials who act like that right belongs only to them.”
You can read the full NSSF report here.