Saturday, May 7, 2011

The Reality of Urban Gun Violence in the United States





10 comments:

  1. The liberals of this country have created a welfare state of broken, single parent homes, where fathers are optional and ideally replaced with food stamp cards. And now that it's progeny is out of control, they want to blame guns and those who lawfully purchase and own them.

    Typical.

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  2. The liberals of this country have done no such thing.

    I'll give you that feminism has made women more independent and less willing to put up with male abuse...and making money.

    We do agree, however AZred, that fathers are tremendously important.

    The conservatives of this country looked the other way during the looting by wall street, leading entire families, including fathers, to be in crisis from financial ruin.

    Liberals have been the ones that created programs to be a safety net,and fix the problems created in part by conservatives. Some work, some don't.

    Guns have never been the answer to any social problem, and they still aren't. One of the more appalling urban myths is that black men, for example, are not actively parenting in families. I would suggest to you that the video with Maddow showing the good Reverend is an example of that not being true.

    After the largely liberal driven civil rights legislation, there have been more black families entering the middle class - that would be the kind from which women like Condi Rice came, with strong fathers.

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  3. AzRed, do you really think that those illegall guns came from the gun fairy?

    They came, at least in part, in large part, from originally legal gun owners.

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  4. "The liberals of this country have done no such thing."

    Yes. They have. I look out my front door, up and down my street, and see it every day. Luckily, my hood is nowhere near as bad as Homewood seems to be.

    "The conservatives of this country looked the other way during the looting by wall street, leading entire families, including fathers, to be in crisis from financial ruin."

    The crisis existed way before the wall street looting. At least for black families, the crisis is nearing the half century mark. The councilman in this video as a black man should know that the problems in his community were in the making far before the NRA started fighting gun bans.

    "Liberals have been the ones that created programs to be a safety net,and fix the problems created in part by conservatives. Some work, some don't."

    And when they don't, it's disastrous. The "safety nets" become generational curses. Quite a few of my friend's parents were on the "safety net". Then my friends got on the "safety net", and more likely than not, their kids will be on the "safety net".

    "Guns have never been the answer to any social problem, and they still aren't."

    No one ever said they were.

    "One of the more appalling urban myths is that black men, for example, are not actively parenting in families."

    There are black men who step up to their responsibilities as a father. But sadly (and statistically), compared to white, hispanic, and asian men, they are the least likely to do so.

    As you said, fathers are important.

    "After the largely liberal driven civil rights legislation, there have been more black families entering the middle class - that would be the kind from which women like Condi Rice came, with strong fathers."

    The irony is Condoleezza Rice came from as far as you can get from the environment that liberals have created in the black communities across our nation.

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  5. Associating the liberals with deadbeat dads is a bit of a stretch, AztecRed. Some of your Republican heroes have a pretty shabby record in the "responsible husband and father" category.

    Gun availability in bad neighborhoods, which is a direct result of the gun-rights battle against gun control, is a major factor in the problem, along with single parent homes, poverty and all the rest of it. The thing is, gun availability is the one factor we could easily do something about.

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  6. "AzRed, do you really think that those illegall guns came from the gun fairy?

    They came, at least in part, in large part, from originally legal gun owners."

    My answer to that is similar to the answer I give those who like to say that the government distributes drugs in the black community: Even if they, no one is forcing you to sell or do drugs.

    Likewise, even if gun are illegally being trafficked into these neighborhoods, no one is forcing you to pick up a gun and shoot someone.

    I could go to a neighborhood in Japan and leave an entire truck full of guns and ammo, and I doubt the people there would just start shooting each other over night.

    The problem in places like Homewood is not guns. The gun violence is only a symptom to a larger problem. That problem lies within the culture, poverty, lack of functional family units, and lack of education.

    You fix those problems, the violence goes away.

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  7. So as the councilman points out to Madcow, it is different in the hood than in the country. They are awash with gun violence in the hood so they need more gun control there than in rural areas.

    If rural areas have the same access to guns as the hood, then why are they not in a similar state of distress?

    Because, as the councilman has aptly demonstrated it is the criminals and the dirtbags in the city, not the fact that there are guns. No amount of gun control is going to stop criminals that disregard those laws.

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  8. Yes, it is different, in that while some of the shooting of firearms in the country is for purposes other than shooting other human beings, some of the firings of guns ARE for shooting humans.

    While in the 'hood' the shootings are pretty much entirely of humans.

    The question you don't seem to be addressing is where did those guns 'in the hood' come from? Pretty much it is a fair assertion they are not legal, and that they came from those country owners originally.

    That there are differences does not argue that there should be different gun ownership restrictions in one location to another. That the guns originate in one place and are used in another DOES argue for stricter gun laws for everybody.

    I was particularly intrigued by the Brady criteria for evaluating states to include mandatory reporting of gun theft. I think that is a very sensible and practical idea, one which we should implement more broadly.

    Do you agree?

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  9. In the discussion of what business exist in the area represented by the Rev./ city councilman that Maddow interviewed, gun stores and sporting goods stores were conspicuously absent.

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  10. AztecRed, Of course if we did away with poverty and unemployment and the breakdown of the family, gun violence would go down. But, I'd suggest while we're working on those things let's make guns harder for the criminals and the irresponsible and the mentally ill to get.

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