Security officials at Trinity recognized her description of the assailant—they believed he’d tried to rob several other people before her. A short time later, the suspect was captured on video trying to use one of her credit cards at a nearby gas station. Yet he was never arrested—a fact that continues to infuriate Vernon five years later.
Like other advocates, Vernon argues that violent crime drops when citizens are allowed to carry loaded weapons. “Everyone benefits from conceal and carry, even if they don’t own a gun, because if someone decides to jump on them, that person has to take a moment and ask themselves, ‘Could they be packing?'” He has statistics ready to back up his argument.
Still, other studies have found no clear correlations, and a recent analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that gun owners are actually more likely to be murdered or to commit suicide.
To Vernon, the debate is settled by the example of Chicago, which banned the sale of handguns in 1968, the possession of handguns in 1982, and the possession of assault rifles in 1992. “So Chicago ought to be the safest place in the country, right? No, it’s the murder capital. The criminals who want to have access to guns have access now.”
After his girlfriend’s mugging, Vernon decided it was time to make these arguments more widely. He and some like-minded friends formed an organization called the Chicago Firearms Safety Association and connected with IllinoisCarry, a statewide group pushing for a change in the law. Vernon then helped organize IllinoisCarry’s first town hall meeting in Chicago, at the Center for Inner City Studies. It attracted dozens of south-siders interested in carrying weapons.
Valinda Rowe, one of the IllinoisCarry leaders, was impressed with Vernon. “For the most part he’s kind of a soft-spoken individual, but there is a firm determination there that is not dissuaded by obstacles. He is relentless.”In
June 2010, Vernon organized another town hall meeting in Chicago, this time at Tuley Park on the south side—not far from where an off-duty police officer had been gunned down by robbers that spring. But a week before the meeting was scheduled to be held, Park District officials informed Vernon that his permit had been revoked. He was convinced the order had come from Mayor Richard M. Daley, a fierce gun-control advocate. “This just sounds a whole lot like Daley’s bullshit,” Vernon told me at the time.
Vernon and IllinoisCarry moved the event to Chicago State, where they made their case to an audience of at least 250. But they were countered by dozens of gun-control advocates led by Reverend Michael Pfleger, the activist priest from Saint Sabina.
Vernon accused Pfleger of dishonesty. “Michael Pfleger’s going to come in there with traumatized teens he’s bused in from somewhere. These are people who’ve lost friends and people who got shot, and what he’s doing is preying on their emotions to try to create a political statement. To me it’s just as wrong as two left feet. Legitimate self-defense has absolutely nothing to do with the criminal misuse of guns.”