450 mayors representing a national coalition petitioned President Barack Obama to embrace numerous actions on restricting gun use. The mayors, a supposedly by partisan coalition, identify themselves as “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.” Anytime citizens see an effort like this, law-abiding citizens who have respect for constitutional law must immediately be concerned especially given the mentality so prevalent among the self-styled progressives that guns kill people, not recognizing people kill people, and putting the focus keenly focused on those who do the killing.
Nothing clarified this issue better than when WJZ-TV, Channel 13, in Baltimore was doing a story on gun violence decades ago when a reporter asked a female citizen her reaction to the murders in her neighborhood. She responded, “Well, ..we’ve got all these guns going around killin’ people!”
Yeah right. Then we should also be fearful of all those automobiles going around killing people as hundreds of citizens are killed each year in auto accidents.
Some of their recommendations are sound involving information sharing between Federal resources and interstate communication reporting the activities of illegal gun trade, but they also focus on gun-shows which could be stepping on lawful gun owner’s toes, and while gun show purchases are shown as a loophole, there simply isn’t evidence that gun shows are the source of guns used in the commission of violent crimes.
What most politicians fail to comprehend and thus have their efforts way off target is that most criminals get their guns on the black market. Some never have ever passed through the American retail market at all. Where the most severe limits on gun sales or outright bans on hand guns sales have been imposed, the results have never been favorable on curbing gun violence in those communities.
The focus must be on the criminals themselves. They must be apprehended, prosecuted, and processed. When society considers how much law enforcement has on its plate dealing with lesser priorities and just how dangerous and out of control the most violent neighborhoods in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Washington, DC and Chicago are, it’s easy to see what a difficult task this presents.
Few cities have the spotlight shining brightly on its trouble more now than Barack Obama’s Chicago where urban violence is surging. One of the most brutal crimes in the past week involved an honor student coming home from school walking into gang violence territory. Attempting to render assistance to a wounded victim, the young man was beaten to death with a railroad tie. Yes a railroad tie! The violent criminals and gang-bangers will use any device available to inflict death and mayhem on others.
Cutting off the supply of guns to criminals and breaking the back of illegal gun trade is a high priority for law enforcement, but it’s important that all efforts be correctly focused on the sources of the problem and not to allow the focus to become too broad or to leap into territory where law enforcement does not belong as clearly spelled out in the 2nd amendment to The Constitution.
When one of the President’s closest associates, Cass Sunstein, the head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs openly argues that hunting should be outlawed and animals should be able to have their rights represented by lawyers, what kind of sane climate exists for the rational discussion of urban gun violence? Some of Obama’s own remarks make his credentials all the more disturbing whether it was the comments he made on the campaign about citizens who “cling to guns and religion” or his attempts to throw fuel on the racial profiling issue commenting that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly” referring to the arrest of his Harvard crony for his outrageous behavior directed toward a well-qualified and respected officer investing a legitimate concern. Out of this environment any reasonable discussion of the issue seems improbable. Likewise, we must be very fearful of what attitude toward the 2nd amendment potential Obama judicial appointees might have.
Gun violence is one horrible symptom of a segment of society that is totally out of control. Gun violence is almost exclusively the product of poor urban neighborhoods whose population is African-American or in some communities, Hispanic. Most of the participants are from single parent families where gang members have never had a true father figure in their upbringing. They have been unreachable by public school programs that simply fail to attempt to embrace children while they’re still impressionable, set realistic expectations, and nurture them to be successful. Every institution that has some impact on the lives of kids who become violent killers blames everyone else in sight seldom taking responsibility for how their failures adds fuel to the problem.
From a young man’s earliest encounter with society in pre-K schooling, core values, respect for law, and personal responsibility must be stressed firmly and activities must be appropriate to give these kids the opportunity to succeed and master skills that will give them good options in their young adult life – jobs, college, the military, or public service. From day one in school, the lesson must be clear, bad behavior has consequences and achievement is rewarded.
More effort needs to be dedicated to working with the kinds of kids who might become gangbangers before they run astray because we know the consequences of what happens the way things are going now.
That more young African American males of college age are likely to be ensnared in the criminal justice process: in jail, standing trial, on probation or parole than attend post-secondary educational programs not only indicts the failure of their educational upbringing but clearly shows how dysfunctional every aspect of our institutions are in giving this population good, rewarding options.
Society’s response seems to be lock ‘em up and forget them and look for false sources to blame the problem like guns.
With mandatory sentencing and so many citizens jailed for such things as drug possession, we see a justice system that is not corrective and accomplishes little of positive impact. Sure, the real violent offenders should be locked up, but how many young black men are three time losers facing long jail terms for holding some weed or engaging in very low level drug transactions.
Legalizing marijuana alone might do more to curb gun violence than more and more effort to regulate gun sales for that act alone would help break the back of the drug trade.
Our social institutions must work to destroy the reasons that lead people into the world of violence. It starts with the schools and branches out from there.
Somehow this latest plea for action on guns seems like another futile effort that will have no impact on the problem.
