Story by 89 WLS reporter Bill Cameron
(CHICAGO) -- Mayor Emanuel is calling for an assault weapons ban, and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy wants something else too.

Superintendent McCarthy is all for an assault weapons ban, but he'd also like to try again to get a state law to make it easier for police to trace handguns.

"It's requiring the loss, transfer or theft of a firearm to be reported," says McCarthy. "If you sell your car, you have to change titles, right, you have to register. If you sell your gun, you don't have to, there's no requirement, which is creating that pipeline of firearms into cities like Chicago because you buy the guns legally and then you transfer them."

The last time this was proposed, the state fee for a handgun title would have been $65.

---
Story by 89 WLS reporter Bill Cameron
(CHICAGO) -- Mayor Emanuel today made a spirited call for action in the wake of the Newtown massacre.

Mayor Emanuel wants more gun control and at police graduation and promotion ceremonies today he called for an assault weapons ban, "We can't just stand behind you and say we support our men and women in the law enforcement community and then not have the laws on the books that help you do your job everyday.

And it's time as a city we have an assault weapon ban. It's time we as a state have an assault weapon ban! It's time we as a country have an assault weapon ban!

And I would hope that the leadership in Congress would now have a vote of conscience."

If and when that vote comes is not yet known.

---

Story by 89 WLS reporter Bill Cameron
(CHICAGO) -- What can we now expect Mayor Emanuel to propose in Springfield in the way of gun control?

The last innovation from the mayor on handgun control was to make you pay a $65 title fee to the state like you pay to register your car with the state.

Earlier this year, Emanuel argued this would help law enforcement trace the illegal guns that come into the city because he said most of those guns come from Illinois, but from outside the city of Chicago, "You have guns from the suburbs flooding our neighborhoods. Our cops are doing a tremendous job. Now you gotta toughen gun laws, not loosen 'em."

Emanuel tried and failed to get the legislature to approve handgun titling this year, but he may try again after Newtown.

© Content Copyright 2012 WLS Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.