Gun control

Chicago’s Futile Attempt to Shut Down Gun Pipeline

In the fall of 2014, Indiana resident Willie Lee Biles made several trips via a Mega Bus coach bus to Chicago carrying a gym bag containing more than 30 handguns. He would then sit on the front porch of a friend’s home on Southside Chicago and sell them to anyone who stopped by. The markups were sometimes three and four times what Biles paid for them back home.

Officials investigating the case said that at least one of his customers was a convicted felon, while others were gang members. In May Biles was convicted of selling firearms without a license, a misdemeanor, and could be incarcerated for up to five years and fined as much as $250,000.

Biles was part of the Iron Pipeline, supplying firearms from lightly regulated Indiana to heavily regulated Chicago. On Tuesday Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill into law that now calls such activity a felony, with sentences that could reach 30 years. House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, who supported the bill, said that more than 400 people have been killed with guns in Chicago alone so far this year, and another 2,320 have been wounded by gunfire. He added that 60 percent of the guns used in those shootings came from states outside Illinois, such as Indiana.