Hat tip Breitbart
This article first appeared in Eagle Rising.
Just another typical three-day weekend in Chicago Ten people were shot and killed in the Windy City last weekend. It's a tragedy because like all lives, black lives do matter. Yet the Black Lives Matter crowd only pays attention when a white cop or deranged white killer kills a black person. Breitbart.com has the report.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/05/7-year-old-boy-amari-brown-among-7-killed-in-chicago-shootings-over-4th-of-july-weekend/
Last week, I read opinion pieces in two campus newspapers, the Daily Bruin (UCLA) and the Daily Californian (UC Berkeley). Both were bemoaning the violent deaths of black people in US cities. Yet, no mention was made of the black on black crime that is the real problem.
The UCB piece was especially disturbing because it was written by two black student activists in an especially divisive and threatening manner. The UCLA editorial was just plain naive. I naturally added my comments to both in the reader thread.
As I stated in both of my comments in the above papers, we are all mourning the victims in Charleston, but it behooves us to follow the example of the good people of that city and show the nation how we should live. Contrary to the Daily Californian diatribe and notwithstanding what happened in Charleston, black people in our cites are not hunkering down in fear of being murdered by cops or racist whites. That is not why you see so many iron grills on doors and windows in black communities. They are hunkering down in fear of black hoodlums and gang bangers.
Of course, campus papers don't want to talk about those problems. That would be politically incorrect and constitute a "micro-aggression". And what is a micro-aggression, you ask?
You don't wanna know. It's college talk.
I am growing a bit weary of all this nonsense. The Berkeley piece (rant??) is particularly egregious, as well as inaccurate. I note that the authors went back 52 years to describe another church bombing. Anything more recent??
ReplyDeleteSadly, on a routine basis, some 90-plus per cent of ALL black homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by other blacks. This means that about 9 per cent of all the rest of us kill the remainder. Whites probably kill no more than about 3 per cent of black victims, if that (too many to be sure, but statistically/comparatively very few).
With regard to common assaults, blacks are about 27 times more likely to assault a white than vice versa. For robberies, that rate is 137 times as likely for blacks on whites as for whites on blacks. For sexual assaults, while blacks commit in excess of 5000 such assaults against white victims annually, the number of similar white-on-black incidents were so few that, statistically speaking, they had to be reported as zero over a recent 5-year period.
So much for who is attacking whom. It is about time to get past this. Surprising (well, maybe not) how few blacks appear to want to.
I will be the first to agree that slavery was a horrible blot in America's history. However, as a sovereign nation, we have been without slavery for roughly, or at least almost, twice as long as we institutionalized it. No currently living American, or at least no native-born American, was ever a slave. The last person who was born into American slavery died probably 50 years ago. To be honest, both slavery and institutional discrimination are getting to be ancient history.
Think how much more productive and meaningful reductions in black-on-black crime, rather than white-on-anybody crime, would be. For some/many (actually too many), however, a zero white-on-black crime rate is the standard and nothing else will suffice.
Elwood,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct and it is well said. Of course, you will called a racist for pointing these things out. Then there is this weeks attack in Cincinnati. Those are the things that happen too often.
The hard thing about these everyday murders is figuring out what generates them. White cop kills black civilian generates several plausible explanations... and when there are several, most of the are at least partly wrong, but that doesn't prevent emotional commitment to the most convenient one available.
ReplyDeleteIt no more stops gun violence to prattle about parental supervision, moral values, television, etc. etc. etc. than it stops civilians getting killed by police to march through the streets saying "black lives matter."
I think Milwaukee has had about ten such killings in the last week or so, and is up to the number of murders this year that occurred in all of 2014. They tend to be over things that fifty years ago more likely resulted in a fist fight ... arguing over a girl on Facebook, intervening in a domestic dispute, etc. I was talking to a friend this morning about the possibility that kids who see their favorite actor gunned down in one movie, then appear alive and well in another, lack the emotional, conceptual framework that shooting someone with a gun is for keeps. Or, the movies where the hero incongruously takes about 1000 rounds from five automatic weapons and never dies.
One could explore the possibility that there are too many guns on the street, or too many getting into the hands of children... I don't know if the NRA has a position on guns for fifteen year olds, but I'm sure there are fifteen year olds who could handle them very responsibly. On the other hand, there are certain ethics missing these days... a guy I used to know who grew up in Colorado said there were two ways to find yourself in a world of hurt, one being to go into grandma's purse, and the other to lay one finger tip on a gun without adult presence, permission and supervision.
One of the kids gunned down in Chicago was probably hit by bullets meant for his father, identified by police as a gang leader... of course the father was mourning for his son, and probably sincerely so. Whether it changes his life I don't know... may not belong to an AME church where they teach things like that.
Not much gang rivalry in Milwaukee right now... the police have been pretty effective in suppressing that. Its more private arguments where people almost immediately reach for guns.
Gary--let them call me what they must. I never really cared much, if in fact at all, about what other people thought of me in the first place, and at this stage of the game I am absolutely totally unconcerned about it. What you see is what you get.
ReplyDeleteI would note that I grew up in the segregated South. I well remember the separate restrooms/water fountains, even in the County courthouse. And the separate seating in movie theaters, and blacks not being able to eat in many/most restaurants or at the dime store lunch counters. And the signs in city buses which said "Whites start loading from front. Colored start loading from rear" (betcha Siarlys never drove a bus with such signs in it).
Now we have a two-term black president. To date we have had two black Secretaries of State (from different parties), two black Attorneys General (one current), and (I believe) two black Supreme Court justices in modern times (one current, which is fairly consistent with the demographics). We have a pretty fair contingent of black U.S. Representatives in the CBC, but could possibly/probably use a few more black senators, which I believe may come in time. Gotta remember, these are elected positions.
I'd call that change, wouldn't you??
As to Cincy, I believe I caught that consideration is being given to charging this as a hate crime. Must have picked up something from witnesses, cell phone videos, or whatever. That would also be something of a change. We'll see.
Siarlys--rather than gun registration schemes and other measures which affect only the law-abiding, here's a novel idea on how to reduce gun violence.
ReplyDeleteThrough 2012, the number of attempted gun purchases by prohibited persons through the national background check process amounted to a little over 1 million, or only some 0.62% of the total of about 160 million sales. Some of those refusals were reversed, but it has been a couple of years, so call it a million for purposes of demonstration for this discussion only.
Depending on the circumstances, each of these 1 million individuals committed at least one, and often several, serious Federal felonies with penalties of 5 years and up. Neither the Bush 43 nor the Obama administrations had/have a stellar record of prosecuting these criminal acts, with an average of 105 per year (for 6 years) for the former and 61 per year (for 2 years) for the latter. This from a total of probably 70,000-75,000 violations per year, for a prosecution rate of something like 0.08%-0.15%.
These would be exceedingly easy cases to make (what I would call a "bird's nest on the ground), and more than 90% would, as usual, result in guilty pleas. There would ALWAYS be at least one live witness as well as documentation in the bad guy's own handwriting, and these days a significant number of the crimes would be caught on video/audio.
To the extent that you believe that persons who are prohibited from buying a gun are the most likely to misuse them, which is the premise of the system, then how dramatically would gun violence have been reduced over the last 16 years if only 10% (yes, I said 10%) of these fools had been prosecuted?? I would submit it would have been SIGNIFICANT!!!
Your thinking is too narrow elwood. The pros and cons of one gun law is not going to make or break this trend, whether you side with the NRA or the Brady Foundation.
ReplyDeleteThere are some Milwaukee police officers wounded in the line of duty who are suing a certain gun shop that had an extremely high rate of straw buyers, and an extremely high rate of guns sold at that shop turning up in shootings on the street, including shootings of police officers.
I think being able to identify specific businesses contributing overwhelmingly to such mayhem, shut them down, and clear up that most other gun dealers are NOT contributing to the mayhem, is useful. Which means, registering and monitoring gun sales has its place.
I also think cities should have the option to pass laws making it a felony to carry a gun on the street without a permit. If the 15 year olds knew it was 5-10 years just for having the gun on their person, the level of killing we've had here would go down fast. There would be fist fights and knife fights, but that doesn't kill so man direct participants, and kills even fewer innocent bystanders.
Those who have taken a basic safety course and signed on the dotted line for a permit could still carry to protect themselves... but nobody under 18 should have a permit. Seriously, a lot of these shootings have been done by 13, 14, 15 year olds.
Something is wrong when law and order people refuse to listen to the local police, once the police begin to point out that the proliferation of guns on the street is a hazard.
"If the 15 year olds knew it was 5-10 years just for having the gun on their person, the level of killing we've had here would go down fast."
ReplyDeleteRight, Siarlys, and if they knew the punishment for shooting somebody to death was life in prison or death, the level of killings would also go down fast.
On some level Gary, they don't realize that shooting is for keeps.
ReplyDeleteThey figure it out the next day.
Carrying a gun is a mundane daily decision.
Firing it is a spur of the moment reflex, when nothing else matters.
Don't take my word for it -- ask the cops.
Siarlys--it was my writing, not my thinking, which was intentionally narrow. Please note that I specifically said that was "a" novel idea; there are many others.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that gun dealers/stores which knowingly sell to straw purchasers should be put out of business, and prosecuted if possible. That is called "targeting" the offender rather than, excuse me, using a shotgun where a single-shot .22 is appropriate.
The particular gun shop you mentioned certainly appears to be in that category. There are obviously other similar ones, but as in any endeavor, and as you indicated, the great bulk of gun sales (gun shop, gun show, Wal Mart, private individual, whatever) are quite legitimate. However, to segue from that into both monitoring and registration, as if they are somehow equivalent, is a stretch.
Monitoring is one thing. As far as I can determine, any person or company who is in the gun business MUST register with the Feds as a firearms dealer, which means that in turn, the books/records must be open/available for inspection on demand. All this involves is a proper allocation of resources to see who is doing what. Said otherwise, you can either expend your efforts to keep guns out of the hands of law-abiders or, alternatively, out of the hands of fools. Don't know that you can, or for that matter need to, do both.
Registration is a horse of a different goose. As I have previously advised, whether you either missed it or failed to comprehend it, a person who is prohibited by law from firearms possession but who comes into one anyway may not, repeat NOT, be compelled to register that firearm where such regulations are in place. Further, they may not, repeat NOT, be prosecuted for either failure to register a firearm or possession of an unregistered firearm. Simple as that.
Accordingly then, by definition, ONLY law-abiding gun owners are required to, and do, register their guns while the bad guys skate. Makes no sense to have people who are not abusing firearms to register them, while exempting those who would and do.
Further, and Gary may (or may not) know more about this, but a little while back, California required the registration of certain "assault weapons" (the much-dreaded semi-automatic military lookalikes, not the real thing). Of course, law-abiders trotted down and registered theirs, while the crooks did not.
And what happened next?? Yes, California then banned some of the guns on the list. And yes, the law-abiders were required to turn theirs in or face prosecution, while the mopes again skated. Make sense?? Nahhhh.
As to more gun restrictions on law-abiders, at least generally speaking, the locales with the most restrictive gun laws (Chicago, DC, etc.) have the highest gun crime rates, while those with less restrictions have lower rates.
Further, you are also apparently unaware that virtually if not totally without exception, as jurisdictions relax tighter gun laws on possession/carrying by law-abiders, while the rate of the FBI index violent crimes of murder, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault actually decrease significantly, the non-violent offenses of burglary and auto theft simultaneously, and at the same time, increase. I guess it depends on whether you would prefer your wife (daughter, mother, sister, whoever) get raped or have your vehicle stolen.
OK, so we need to implement prosecution of those who have unregistered firearms, so that we can focus on the bad guys, not the law-abiding gun owners. What Milwaukee police really want right now is the authority to arrest someone on the street in possession of a firearm who lacks a concealed carry permit -- in a state that will grant a permit to almost anyone. That would have saved several lives this year.
ReplyDeleteIs carrying a firearm without the required carry permit (different than a registration) not a criminal offense in WI/Milwaukee?? Would seem strange if that is not the case.
ReplyDeleteCarrying a firearm without a permit is not something that the police are authorized by state law to make an arrest for. Maybe there is a citation they can issue or something. The NRA wouldn't stand for an arrest.
ReplyDelete