After a government semi-shutdown, the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov and the looming budget crisis coming again in January, you’d think the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate would reserve his limited time and resources to focus on fixing these critical issues the federal government has already messed up.

You’d be wrong.

Senator Richard Durbin, the second most powerful man in the Senate, will hold a special hearing this week on state self-defense laws and the death of Trayvon Martin. (PJ Media has extensively covered the Trayvon Martin incident. See, “Justice for Trayvon, Race Hustler Style,” or Bill Whittle’s fantastic revelation about Purple Drank and what the media have never reported.)

Dick Durbin represents Chicago, which the FBI reported in September surpassed New York City as the murder capital of the United States, with 500 murders in 2012.

It sounds like Illinois should look into adopting some self-defense laws.

The Chicago Tribune reported that during the 2011-2012 school year 319 public school children were shot, and, sadly, 24 of those students died. But what’s worse is that these 24 dead school children represent an improvement from Chicago’s previous school year, when 28 children were killed.

Contrast the number of deaths in Chicago to the FBI and Department of Defense totals for the war in Afghanistan. Between 2001 and 2012, 2,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, whereas more than 5,000 Chicago residents were killed in the same time period.

Where was Senator Durbin when his 24 school-aged constituents died? Where was Senator Durbin when 5,000 of his own residents were killed?

When was his hearing to examine Chicago gun laws and their impact on the 500 homicide victims and families in 2012 alone?

Race played a prominent role in the media coverage (or mis-coverage) following Trayvon Martin’s death. Why aren’t hundreds of dead black children in Chicago worth the same amount of attention given to a single black teenager in Florida?

We know the reason. Calling attention to the cesspool of Chicago will draw too much inconvenient attention to too many failed ideas and Democrat policies.

The dirty little secret is that gun-violence protesters and anti-gun politicians like Senator Durbin will ignore gun deaths that don’t fit their gun-control narrative. Race doesn’t matter if it doesn’t help their agenda.

Where are the rallies for the hundreds of black children killed each year in Chicago? We can’t talk about Chicago because it’s a gun-control town.

Why wasn’t there more media coverage of the shooting death of the beautiful Chicago schoolgirl barely a week after she sang at President Obama’s 2013 inauguration?

What makes one black teenager, shot and killed while engaging in questionable behavior, different from dozens killed in the same school year?

Answer — Florida ensures Americans have a right to self defense, even with a gun.

The left, including Durbin, hate pro-gun laws and are seeking to destroy them wherever they can.

Thanks to the NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, and other gun rights groups, Chicago officials had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize the Second Amendment rights of residents to keep firearms in their own homes. Like a petulant child, city office holders stomped their feet and crafted a series of regulations, requirements, and expensive fees that prevent most people from exercising their self-defense rights.

An American city with a larger homicide rate than an active war zone should cause national outrage, calls to action, and be the subject of a hearing, perhaps even by the high-ranking senator who represents this deadly town.

Instead, Dick Durbin joined other gun-control sycophants to dance in the blood of a single dead black teenager in a pro-gun state.

“Dancing in the blood” is a phrase commonly used to describe the antics gun-control proponents use to exploit a tragedy and the emotions of the public to advance their political agenda.

Dick Durbin is the dirtiest of dancers.

We saw it after Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Aurora movie theater, and Sandy Hook elementary school shootings, and each time, calls for stricter gun laws begin almost immediately. Most of the time, the NRA gets dragged into the story, and often the organization is attacked if it doesn’t take the opportunity to apologize (as though an organization of lawful gun owners has any culpability). Rarely does the press note that all of these sites were gun-free zones, areas where firearms are specifically banned under the guise of keeping us safe.

Homicide victims and their families are used as pawns by the gun-control left. They hold press conferences, book television interviews, and then trot out grieving mothers and baby pictures of the dead to tug at the public’s heartstrings.

They thought they had gotten their chance with the death of Trayvon Martin. Sure, they had to create a new term (“white Hispanic”) in order to fit the racial component, and they had to play fast and loose with some facts. Naturally the usual leftist suspects banded together to take full advantage of this crisis.

We heard a barrage of cries to roll back “Stand Your Ground” laws and to pass “reasonable” gun control. We also saw the inevitable finger pointing at the NRA.

In truth, the NRA and other gun-rights groups represent more Americans than the anti-gun left who hold televised protests and exploit politically expedient victims. This fact bears itself out in the number of states that have passed self-defense laws with overwhelming bipartisan support.

More than 40 states have codified the concept of “Stand Your Ground” and the majority of states allow permit holders to carry concealed firearms in public. It’s worth noting that Illinois, Dick Durbin’s state and home of the nation’s homicide capital, was the last state to institute such permits.

So no, Senator Durbin won’t confront the gun laws in the state he represents, because those gun laws are part of the problem. He can’t have a hearing or national conversation about Chicago’s homicide rate, because he wants to pass Chicago-style gun control on the rest of us.

Why is Senator Durbin even holding a federal hearing to examine state gun laws passed overwhelmingly by the various legislatures, according to their enumerated constitutional powers?

Not only does Dick Durbin not respect the Second Amendment rights of Americans, but he doesn’t understand the proper balance of power between the federal and state governments. It’s a sick joke that he presides over the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.

The right to defend yourself and your family is one of the most fundamental American constitutional rights. Why is the modern Democratic Party on a quest to aid the lawless and dependent at the expense of the law-abiding, productive American?

Look around — this is the theme of the Obama years: aiding the lawless and dependent. The same tune echoes across the agencies.

In keeping with this theme, Trayvon Martin’s mother will be on hand to testify in Durbin’s hearing: a pawn in a political show-trial. Exploiting her is no less disgusting than the woman who posed as an aunt of one of the slain Sandy Hook children. But it’s what we’ve come to expect in a Senate controlled by politicians like Dick Durbin.