CHICAGO (CBS) – A South Side alderman is asking for City Council hearings on an unorthodox gun control measure that would allow for GPS tracking of firearms.
WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), a former police officer, has suggested that global positioning system chips be embedded in new guns, and retrofitted on existing firearms, so they could be located if they go missing.
“Just like if your car gets stolen, OnStar can tell you where your car is. If your gun gets stolen, and you report it, we should be able to find that gun,” he said.Cochran has introduced a resolution asking the Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings to receive testimony on the matter. A Massachusetts state senator from Boston has been pushing a similar measure in that state.
Cochran acknowledged it might be expensive to install GPS chips on current and future firearms, but not as expensive as the cost of gun violence to society.
“Let’s measure what it costs in hospital costs, lost wages, deaths,” he said.
As for the privacy of gun owners who could be tracked with the GPS chips in their guns, Cochran said, “safety is … a much more important issue than is privacy.”
“It is extremely important that we look past this privacy issue, at this point, and understand how important it is for us to address the issue of safety,” he added.
The mayor wasn’t commenting on Cochran’s proposal.
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