300 Arrests; 100 Guns

McNumbers is playing this one for all it's worth:

• Chicago police busted street drug sales operations in 10 district across the city over a three-day period ending Saturday, police superintendent Garry McCarthy announced Sunday.

  Police arrested over 300 people and confiscated more than 100 weapons.

  Of those arrested who have been identified, 99 percent were gang members, McCarthy said.

  “Efforts such as this are part and parcel of our broader violence reduction strategy,” McCarthy said.

  “Looking at the guns recovered and keeping in mind that this is just a snapshot of the number of guns Chicago police take off the streets daily, it’s clear these efforts are paying dividends but work remains to be done.”

All this effort and we still have around 40 shot and 7 dead, mostly where the police weren't.

If these 100 guns were actually seized in three days, and the seizures were from people who are currently ineligible to have guns, then well done. But we seem to recall numerous incidents from years past where legally owned guns were taken by certain units and paraded about as "seized" weapons. We also remember guns being taken out of E&RPS that had been taken weeks, even months prior and passed off on photo ops with Shortshanks as the product of recent busts.

We were wondering though - how does this sudden influx of 300 arrests, mostly for dope, jibe with Cook County Board President Preckwinkle's recent assertion that Ronald Reagan deserves a special place in hell for his efforts to enforce drug laws while incarcerating lawbreakers of minority descent? After all, aren't these 300 arrests just an extension of Reagan's War on Drugs begun back in the 1980's?