Guns and race

The thread title comes from Juan Williams. His Wall Street Journal piece; Race and the Gun Debate I'll link.

Juan Williams: Race and the Gun Debate - WSJ.com

One thing you don't hear much about in the discussions of guns: race.

That is an astonishing omission, because race ought to be an inescapable part of the debate. Gun-related violence and murders are concentrated among blacks and Latinos in big cities. Murders with guns are the No. 1 cause of death for African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34. But talking about race in the context of guns would also mean taking on a subject that can't be addressed by passing a law: the family-breakdown issues that lead too many minority children to find social status and power in guns.

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This hits several points I've made recently. Firstly, I thought the Newtown response was kneejerk and exposed many with a gun control agenda. Murders as Juan Williams points out here are the number one....not two...number one cause of death for AA men between 15-34. And have been for some time. But it takes a horrific incident like Newtown to suddenly wake the politically minded? Sorry, I found many people's responses fake and disingenuous.

The other issue here glares at you.....Williams hits it on the head....there are serious family breakdown issues that NEVER get discussed when our lawmakers and political pontificators mouth off concerning gun control.

The Justice Department reports that between 1980 and 2008, "blacks were six times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and seven times more likely than whites to commit homicide."

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Gun control is going to change this glaring stat?

The dire implications of these numbers is evident in a Children's Defense Fund report that included a chilling historical perspective: The 44,038 black children killed by guns since 1979 (when national data on the age of gun violence victims was first collected) is "nearly 13 times more" than all the black people killed by lynching in the 86-year period of 1882 to 1968.

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44,038 black children? Since 1979? And yet.....look to what finally and supposedly wakes up some politically minded observers to the causes of gun control.......does this not expose many as disingenuous? Or perhaps even racist? For 44,000+ black children are killed....and it didn't boil anyone's broth.....Newtown occurs and suddenly....something...anything "must be done."

I don't buy it for one minute. It's fake.

The debate over gun control too often seems a matter of abstractions about the meaning of the Constitution and the permissible capacities of ammunition magazines. Why is so little time spent on a question of more immediate concern—namely, why are so many young black people using guns to kill their neighbors?

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EXACTLY JUAN! It isn't because guns are readily available because they're just as readily available outside the black communities. And race doesn't matter to a mentally unstable mind not does the legal status of any weapon.

I ain't no Juan Williams fan, but he's dead on correct here

myp said:

I have a question that I think is better than his: why do so many in politics reject the data instead opting for ideological talking points and why do some of them work to actively suppress more data collecting? It is a complex situation with lots of moving parts- some of you mention here- greater studies would certainly help us better understand the actual causal relationships, strong vs. weak correlations, etc.

As for why Newtown led to a surge in anti-gun politics- the Overton window. What gets done in politics without it really?

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Some observers would like to make the point that the 44,038 black children since just 1979 should had thrown an 'overton window' wide open...if one is truly genuine in believing gun control legislation would help the problem. Other observers would like to know exactly why murder being the number one killer of African American males 15-34 data was ignored for so long? Why is it a Newtown is needed to open anyone's window, why is it this data on murders with handguns is rejected for decades?

Today's gun control responses to Newton being some 'overton window' thus seems utterly fake and most probably agenda driven. No one can reasonably argue "now" is the time to act on gun control or that some 'window' exists. To do so ignores decades of data and is disingenuous at best, I think Williams' piece here should shame many.

myp said:

The various events obviously aren't perfect substitutes, for one. 44k while a tragedy is over more than 3 decades with various openings and closings of such windows. And this is hardly the first time someone has talked about gun legislation in the last 30 years...

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No one is suggesting the events are perfect substitutes. What I'm suggesting is that this Newtown event providing some kind of political window is a disingenuous endeavor in my opinion. And as the Williams' piece points out....omits race from this discussion....and as I point out....omits many other issues as well concerning mental health and/or family structure issues.....cultural decay for example. Video games, what our youth are exposed to, etc. The manner in which life itself has been devalued in this culture, the stats do not lie.

44k+ myp......should have been the political window. The reality in our inner cities the stats being ignored......those Senators coming from those cities......like Chicago....are elected President where they can pretend a Newtown shooting calls for gun control. Where has this President been while his f'n city is in flames, surburbia America encounters a tragedy and he's all of the sudden an activist.

Allow me another example to make my point further. Remember war activists? Those who pretended to oppose the Iraq War on moral grounds? The anti-war activists, the Cindy Sheehan's, the Senators and House Members who demanded benchmarks and threatened to end funding and demanded withdrawl dates......remember them? The Afghan War today still seeing American troops killed, we continue to infuriate militant Islam, the detainee policies continue, Gitmo remains open.......do you see any of these activists anymore, myp? No you don't. Therefore, you know they are frauds....poltiical opportunists. Agenda driven, the opposition to the war in Iraq wasn't based on morality or values or outrage. It was founded in politics. Unpatriotic and unAmerican I know, but many many were guilty of this, a good example for what I speak to above.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused President Barack Obama of using the Sandy Hook school shooting for political gain on Thursday.

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Rock on, Senator Cruz. Anyone but his most ardent supporters can plainly see his response is one of political gain.

Cruz said Obama’s call not to “get squishy” on tougher gun control laws was taking advantage of a tragic situation, and he vowed to stop the White House’s push for such regulations, The Huffington Post reports

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Don't you think, Barack.......you'd sound a tad more genuine if you were using the stats I mentioned earlier. The 44,000+ children in the last 30 years...the fact that murder is the number one killer of African American men between 15-34, your misplaced focus carris with it the stench of disingenuous political hogwash.

"Shame on us if we've forgotten," Obama said earlier Thursday at the White House, surrounded my mothers who have lost children to shootings. "I haven't forgotten those kids."

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The majority of the constituency on this nation forgot about the children from your leading the stats in crime city of Chicago when they elected you though. Now, you're pretending as if this Newtown shooting as created some kind of 'overton window'? Mr. President, your political poppycock is so obviously disingenuous. So plainly agenda driven. You're a joke.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cruz-obama-newtown-shootings/2013/03/28/id/496863#ixzz2OwnR4K5W

I often thank God that men like Jefferson and Adams and Madison came first and posts like #10 came second in this country.

Happy Easter, myp.

Jefferson, Adams, Madison first

David and myp second

thank God!

tecoyah said:

Not to mention that Jefferson and Adams and Madison are some of the men who created the rights in the first place, as well as the courts that uphold them.

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The "men" who "created" the rights?

Our declaration as signed by Adams and Jefferson;

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

You meant to say....let us pray your colossal misunderstanding here is just that....a misunderstanding...you meant to say it is men like Jefferson and Adams who understood a truth they considered "self-evident." That certain unalienable rights had been endowed...not created by any man.

And that any government in this America would be at the consent of the governed.

Colossal mistakes will be corrected

-Stonewall.

myp said:

Ignoring valid points to keep your bubble intact again?

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I restated my opinion on the matter. I thank God almighty that men such as our Founders came before some of the authors on this thread. And I'll take time to thank God almighty again. For I believe the Founders were men ahead of their time, while many observers here have colossal misunderstandings of rights, endowed or otherwise.

You haven't made any points to ignore, anyway.