Sen. Durbin Claims Indiana Responsible for Chicago Gun Violence at ACB Hearing: ‘We Know How it Works Where You Live’

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) claimed during Tuesday’s Senate hearing with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that firearm dealers in Indiana were responsible for gun violence in Chicago by “gang bangers and thugs.”

“We know how it works where you live,” Durbin said, addressing Barrett during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “You know it works. There is a traffic between Chicago, northern Indiana, and Michigan going on constantly. Gun shows are held in Gary, Indiana and other places. When they’re selling these firearms without background checks, unfortunately, these gang bangers and thugs fill up the trunks of their cars with firearms and head in the city of Chicago and kill everyone from infants to older people. Law enforcement is fighting it trying to get Indiana to at least do background checks at these gun shows with limited success.”

Barrett, an Indiana resident, has served as a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which is headquartered in Chicago, since 2017.

Durbin said statistics collected by the city of Chicago suggested 21 percent of firearms used illegally in the city had originated in Indiana, though not necessarily at gun shows. Durbin was voicing his objection to Barrett’s dissent in Kanter v. Barr, in which Barrett argued that Ricky Kanter, a Wisconsin doctor, should possess the right to own a firearm after serving his sentence for a felony conviction on mail fraud charges.

“You’re opening more opportunities for people to buy firearms, are you not?” Durbin asked.

“Senator, you referred to gang members and thugs buying guns in Indiana and taking them across the border,” Barrett replied. “And certainly that — if they had felony convictions for doing the kind of things members of gangs and thugs do, nothing in Kanter says the government can’t deprive them of firearms. Nothing says, in my opinion, that the government can’t deny Ricky Kanter of having firearms. They simply had to make a showing of dangerousness before they did so. Nothing in the opinion opines at all on the legality of background checks and gun licensing. Those are all separate issues.

Watch above via Fox News.