Forget about open borders and the gangs that flood in and engage in open warfare.  Forget about the hateful rhetoric of Black Lives Matter and the White House visit that honored those cries of hatred.  And pay no attention to the ACLU and Justice Department's halting of most stop-and-frisk action by the Chicago Police Department.

Nope, the reason Chicago is so violent is…social media!

Dave Workman reports for Conservative Firing Line:

When Zachary Fardon resigned as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, he apparently did not do it as "abruptly" as reported by the Chicago Tribune, because he took time to write a five-page analysis of the city's violence problem and he blames social media for driving it.

"Today's gun violence is driven by social media," Fardon wrote in an open letter that was published by the Tribune online. "And a corollary of that is that gun violence has become like a virus. One taunt through Instagram leads to a shooting, which leads to bragging on snapchat or Facebook, which leads to a retaliation shooting, and then the cycle repeats. The virus spreads."

Is Chicago more exposed to social media than more peaceful cities (which would be pretty much every other city)?  Even Fardon concedes:

… he intimated that legal problems for Chicago police had made them timid, and as a result, armed thugs are emboldened.

"So by January 2016," Fardon wrote, "the city was on fire. We had no police superintendent. Cops were under scrutiny[.] ... So cops stopped making stops. And kids started shooting more – because they could, and because the rule of law, law enforcement, had been delegitimized. And that created an atmosphere of chaos."

And who was it that delegitimized law enforcement?  Nobody in particular, I guess, especially not the ACLU and the last two A.G.s.  No, the solution that Fardon offered would chill any First Amendment lover:

"The virus of gun play moves through social media," Fardon stated. "We can stop or stem that. Don't send in the National Guard, send in the tech geeks. If a gang member makes CPD's Strategic Subject List, find a way to curb or real-time monitor that gang member's social media accounts. If kids have convictions or overt gang affiliations, find a way to curb their social media. I recognize that First Amendment issues come into play, but let's test those limits. Lives are at stake."

When the real causes of Chicago's violence are taboo to mention – fatherlessness, the ideology of racial victimization, the failure of schools, the glamorization of violence and lawlessness in the culture, and all the other products of progressives' dominance of culture, bureaucracy, and the courts – the left looks to curb constitutional rights as a solution.

Hat tip: Cheryl Jacobs Lewin