This morning four people were shot on the “Blue Line” Chicago subway near Forest Park. All four are confirmed dead.

Forest Park is a Chicago suburb in Cook County 10 miles west of the city.

Police are not releasing the name of the suspect. They have said a 911 call was received prior to 5:30AM and responding officers found four victims. Three had died at the scene and one died later at the hospital while being treated.

The suspect fled and was later apprehended. The accused suspect was found on another train line, the Pink Line, with a firearm.

Guns are not allowed to be brought onto any property owned by the Chicago Transit Authority. Transit areas are a “gun free zone” in Illinois.

Just four days ago, the Chicago Transit Authority was bragging about its extensive use of security cameras and anti-gun technology to ‘spot’ and ‘detect’ guns.

Chicago is one of the most gun-hostile jurisdictions in America. Generally speaking, Chicago tries to ban all possession of handguns.

Illinois state law specifically prohibits gun possession on any property owned by a public transportation agency.

Anti-Gun groups like the Everytown/Brady Center group rank Illinois as #3 in the nation for “gun law strength” meaning how hostile it is to gun ownership.

The anti-gun group the Giffords Law Center gives the State of Illinois an “A-” for the degree to which they restrict gun ownership and possession. The Giffords Center is named for former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head by former Quiznos employee Jared Loughner in Tucson in 2011.

Police say that this shooting at Forest Park is an isolated incident, even though Chicago has gone through a remarkable rise in violent crime.

Violent crime was reported in Chicago to be at the highest level in a decade, even though the arrest rate dropped.

This is alleged to be part of the lax-on-crime policies of most major left-wing elites in power, specifically prosecutors and judges who release violent criminals with no required bail.

Illinois eliminated all bail as a condition of release in any criminal case. Meaning that, if someone is charged with a quadruple murder, they can be released while they wait for trial to begin.

In Illinois, as of September 18, 2023, defendants are not required to post bail to secure their release. Meaning that, there is no guarantee that they will show up to future court dates once accused of a crime. The left pitched this as the “Pretrial Fairness Act” when it was marketing the policy, such as this policy paper by the John Podesta-linked Center for American Progress.

Left-wing groups have changed Illinois law to allow a judge to release someone with serious charges before a trial if they are deemed to not constitute a current risk to the public.

The only recourse for judges when a defendant fails to appear is to issue a “failure to appear” warrant. Left wing groups claim that since Illinois judges haven’t been issuing those warrants, defendants must be showing up to court. There is no structural penalty for a failure to appear warrant, other than being arrested and brought to court again. Previously, the penalty was forfeiting the face value of the bond, which created a strong financial incentive for bail bondsmen to produce defendants before their scheduled court dates, and also for defendants to appear or risk losing a significant sum of money.

Incidents like this also bring to light the degree to which gun bans create a disarmed population which can be victimized by a single bad actor.

Guns & Ammo magazine ranked Illinois as 41st among states with gun laws, indicating that it was very hostile to gun ownership.

Statistics show that Illinois has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership per capita in the country, at 27.8%.

Defensive Gun Uses are measured in social science as incidents when a gun is typically brandished by a potential victim to deter an attack. Studied rates vary between 500,000 and 3 million, with other studies saying the rate is somewhere in the 1.5 million range.

The laws and anti-gun culture in Illinois likely contributed to, and exacerbated the tragedy, by disarming the victims in a known gun-free-zone.