The Gun Debate Misses the Mark in Detroit

The Detroit News

On the one hand, guns exacerbate a culture in which human life is treated as valueless and disposable.

There’s the 12-gauge shotgun that was used to kill Renisha McBride. McBride crossed city lines from Detroit to Dearborn Heights, apparently searching for help after her car crashed. The 19-year-old ended up on the porch of Theodore Wafer, who is charged with fatally shooting her in the face.

Then there are the guns used in 333 of Detroit’s 386 homicides in 2012. And there’s a stark racial bias to these deaths: In Michigan, African-American men are 41 times more likely to die of homicide than white men.

This is further reinforced by the woefully understaffed and overstretched Detroit Police Department. While police use of force against African-Americans in Detroit has a long, gnarly history, the most immediate issue with today’s police isn’t abuse, it’s their striking absence and negligence: a 50-plus minute wait after dialing 911; less than 10 percent of cases solved; over 10,000 untested rape kits forgotten over the course of two decades.

On the other hand, guns provide a way to address a context saturated with violent crime and police inefficacy.

In this vacuum of social disorder, Detroiters — known for their grit and perspicacity — have doubled-down on the problem of crime. For some, this has taken the form of organized citizen patrol groups, such as the Detroit 300, which uses Michigan’s combination of citizen arrest and concealed carry laws to apprehend criminals the police are unable (or unwilling) to arrest themselves.

Early Gun Debate - Kennedy Assassination Era

More World News from ABC | JFK Assassination Remembered

Does U.S. Regionalism Explain the Gun Debate?

Union soldiers fire a volley at Confederate troops during re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg on June 28, 2013.

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

MSNBC

The Deep South, Greater Appalachia and The Far West have the highest rates of deadly assault, but their legislators still resist stricter gun reforms. In April, 12 of the 14 Senators from the seven Deep South states voted against a background checks bill, which has since stunted gun reform progress.

Woodard theorizes that this regional resistance among policymakers and populace depicts the historically rooted value on individual liberties and anti-interventionism.

In the Deep South, the fight over slavery created an ongoing battle against federal powers and a deep strain of anti-federalism which lingers today. Likewise, Appalachia was founded by settlers from war-ravaged areas like Northern Ireland, Northern England and the Scottish 

Lowlands, where people grew familiar to violence as they struggled in a bloody fight for independence against the British. And in the Far West, its settlers were tied to Eastern powers that fought against outside Western intervention.

The Northern regions like Yankeedom and The Midlands, however, experience less gun violence because of their peaceful and religious roots, according to Woodard.

Yankeedom experiences less than two deaths per 100,000 people from gun violence each year and in its six states, 11 of the 12 senators voted in favor of expanded background checks in April.

Has the 2nd Amendment Outlived Its Usefulness?

Hi Mike,

I thought you and your readers would be interested in a free, live debate hosted by Intelligence Squared US that asks “Has The Second Amendment Outlived Its Usefulness?” This debate will be live on FORA.tv Thursday November 14th at 6:45 pm ET: http://fora.tv/event/the_constitutional_right_to_bear_arms_has_outlived_its_usefulness/livestream.

Arguing for the motion will be Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Sanford Levinson, Professor of Law and of Government at the University of Texas; David Kopel, Research Director of the Independence Institute, and Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law will argue against the motion. More information can be found at http://f4a.tv/HorwCc

The stream will be interactive with a Twitter feed, where you and your readers can join the discussion around this controversial topic. If you are unable to watch live, the debate will be available to watch on-demand shortly after the event.  

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, and I hope you'll join us for this lively debate!

Best,

Julia

--

Julia Aranda
Social Media Coordinator
julia@fora.tv
http://fora.tv/

Piers Morgan and Breitbart News author A.W.R. Hawkins

Breitbart with video

Charleston County SC Sheriff Al Cannon

It's kinda funny the way he said he's not the type of politician who just says what the people want to hear and then went on to say just what the people want to hear.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

The Gun Debate on Alex Wagner

Now with Alex Wagner

 

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Piers Morgan Describes the Situation Perfectly

Politico

 

Bill Moyers on the Gun Debate

via HuffPo

Lee Camp on the Gun Debate

NYT Op-Ed on the Gun Debate

New York Times op-ed

On national television, you can talk about the sordid details of your sex life, the depth of your religious piety or your belief that an organization that no longer exists, Acorn, stole the 2012 presidential election — a fantasy held by half of Republicans. You can call climate change a hoax, you can say the moon landing never happened, you can even praise Alex Rodriguez, though you shouldn’t.

But you cannot talk about the 300 million or more guns circulating in private hands in the United States. The most armed society in the world, ranked first among 179 nations in the rate of gun ownership, had 9,146 gun homicides in 2009. The same year, Canada had 173. But don’t bring that up.

Costas made his brief remarks at halftime of the Sunday night game. Within minutes, the censors went after him. Top Republicans called for his resignation. Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin, who are to reasoned argument what salt is to a slug, condemned him. And Herman Cain, the pizza guy who at one point led the Republican presidential primary field in the polls, passed on this tweet: “Excuse me, Bob Costas, but you are an idiot, so shut up.”

Those last two words pretty much define the current climate regarding debate about guns and violence. In this country, it is the issue that dare not speak its name.

People with guns in the home are at a far greater risk of dying of homicide than those without, the American Journal of Epidemiology reported in 2004. For men, the likelihood of death by suicide is much higher if a gun is nearby. And 90 percent of suicide attempts by gun are successful; for willful drug overdoses, the rate is only 2 percent.

Understandably, people buy guns for self-defense. But a gun in the home is 12 times more likely to result in the death of a household member, or a visitor, than an intruder, a 2010 study by the official journal of the Southern Medical Association found.

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