Gun Control Is a Reproductive Justice Issue: Some Thoughts for Mother's Day
(crossposed at Nonviolent Choice, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com )
It happened again last week in my neighborhood, just a few blocks from where my family lives. I didn't hear the shots or the screams this time, but other times, I have. Sometimes it happens at night, but this time, it was in broad daylight. The toll was one dead, one wounded--both young Black men.
And not a word about their fates in the big media, though certainly there was among the distressed neighbors. Including the children who grow up here knowing every day what children shouldn't have to think about too much: that their lives could be cut short on purpose by someone else in an irrevocable instant. A sweet-faced young man my daughter grew up with died from a gunshot to the back of his head. He left a baby girl behind. As much as for him, we wept to see his overwhelmed parents, family, and friends at the funeral.
I could take you on a sad pilgrimage around my neighborhood and show you all the telephone poles, corners, stretches of sidewalk, and weedy vacant lots where fellow human beings, mostly young Black men, saw the last of this Earth because of gun violence. There is nothing left in these places to mark their premature and abrupt departures except for the sorrowful and outraged hearts of those who pass by and remember what happened there and there and there.
Every year in the United States, gun violence kills 30,000 human beings and injures another 70,000. Gun rights advocates like to say, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." So why is it that I've never met anyone in my neighborhood who agrees with this statement? So many of these killings and woundings happen regularly in neighborhoods like mine, to low-income people of color, often Black and Brown young men.
In other words, it's not the same world most gun rights advocates inhabit. They tend to be majority-white and far more prosperous and able to pay for lobbyists. I am speaking of those who manufacture and profit from the gun trade, and the hunters who (in this country anyway) kill animals primarily for sport and not substinence.
In casting the gun issue as a matter of individual rights and responsibilities, the gun lobby only fuels the criminalization and scapegoating of impoverished people of color, especially young men. Framing the issue this way has an unmistakable implication: better-off white people must know how to handle their guns responsibly, and low-income people of color must not--why else would there be so many more gun crimes and deaths in *those* neighborhoods? *Those* people got what was coming to them, didn't they?
This framing of the gun issue prevents Americans from taking up the collective responsibilities we have too long failed: our collective responsibilities to structurally alleviate poverty, classism, and racism.
These include our collective responsibilities to challenge the patterns of underregulated or unregulated marketing and distribution which have allowed the gun industry to systematically insinuate its way into inner-city neighborhoods. Geoffrey Canada, a noted child welfare activist from the Black community, has spoken up about the gun industry's conscious strategies for moving into the inner-city once it had saturated and achieved the maximum profit it could from the "sportsmen's" market.
In the inner city, it's human beings who get hunted with guns now, and in most cases legal guns. 88% of guns used in crimes were bought quite legally from the rampantly unregulated sectors of the gun market. And US-made guns flood the international trafficking in small arms, which is responsibile for the high rate of gun violence in other beset places populated by poor human beings of color, like the favelas of Brazil.
Every single human being killed or hurt by gun violence made it onto this Earth in the first place because a woman carried him/her for nine months, birthed him/her, and in most cases raised him/her. And many victims of gun violence are, or were, parents themselves.
The right to raise our children in a safe, healthy environment is a core demand of reproductive justice. Not surprisingly, this demand arises from the very communities of color most devastated by gun violence. As well as an obvious pro every life concern, gun control is a reproductive justice issue.
Gun rights advocates are also without exception the children of mothers, and many are parents themselves. Aside from the gun makers and those who hunt animals for sport, some honestly believe that the unregulated right of gun ownership is essential to protect themselves and their families.
What if they could see how much the lack of gun control undermines the ability of people in neighborhoods like mine to protect ourselves and our children? What if they could glimpse what we already have learned too often, the hard way: that guns constitute the falsest of hopes for personal security? That widescale disarmament is ultimately the best way to keep every mother's son or daughter, every parent, and every human being safe and healthy as can be?
"I am speaking of those who manufacture and profit from the gun trade, and the hunters who (in this country anyway) kill animals primarily for sport and not substinence (sic)".
Huh?
As for "...most gun rights advocates...tend to be majority-white and far more prosperous and able to pay for lobbyists.
Not true. This is the same thinking that Gore and Kerry had. There are many millions of people that own firearms that belong to no organizations whatsoever. This is why the focus on the big bad NRA fails. Millions and millions of gun owners neither belong to the NRA or hunt. They do however vote.
So it's just average votin' joes who, say, defend the right to own machine guns?
Or who are so against background checks for the types of gun buyers who act as a conduit for guns to get into neighborhoods like mine?
Check your facts please. "Machine guns" have been tightly regulated for decades and it's very expensive to buy one. You're referring I'm sure to ordinary semi-automatic rifles that just happen to look like their military counter-parts.
As far as background checks go, I do not feel the government needs to be involved in sales between private parties who buy and sell on occasion. This is totally different than a person who makes a living selling guns.
There is little to no credible evidence that criminals buy their guns from legitimate private sellers. They buy them on the black market and will continue to do so regardless of the background check laws.
Yes, but most of that "black market" is fed by unregulated and so called legitimate channels. There is a systemic issue here.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
To show how obsolete gun control is, look at this video of a homemade submachine gun that was built with todays garage tools. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhbdW9SxEM Now imagine what digital fabricators and nanofactories can do!
Ta, Da! Your point has been easily refuted. But I bet later on, you will repeat the refuted point again just like a lying creationist would (ex. Kent Hovind).
Obviously it is possible to construct home-made guns but it is hardly an endeavour that your average teenager, anxious to prove his reputation, is going to have the skills, patience or equipment to do so. Yes, illegal factories could be made but, as with other illegal enterprises such as drugs processing, money counterfeiting etc., the police would crack down upon them.
I am not saying that gun regulation would entirely end gun crime but it seems obvious that if guns were not available legally they would be harder to obtain and, if there were fewer in circulation gun crime would be decreased.
This need not even entirely ban gun ownership - countries such as Britain have shown how strict background checks and regulation of the gun-types allowed (in general limiting handguns on grounds of ease of concealment and automatics or semi-automatics because of the scale of injury they can inflict) can result in considerably lower levels of gun crime but still allow hunting and target shooting.
So how's that police crackdown on Drugs going? Hundreds of billions of dollars in counting and yet it is ridiculously easy to get a dime bag of pot on the street. It is not an endeavour of an average teenager, but it is certainly easy for drug dealers and others in the underworld to make their own guns and sell them for profit.
Gun control is obsolete.
Vanessa Robinson, it is quite pathetic for lefties like you to rely on the STUPID DRUG WAR to bolster your arguments.
The reason that we have the second amendment is to make sure that we will not lose our other right to the government. The police are required to protect you and if you wish to have yourself and family protected it is your duty not someone else's. If you don't, can't or won't carry a gun or have one you can use to defend yourself or family that is not the problem of those of us that do carry and are willing to protect our loved ones. Criminals that use them in crimes will not give them up no matter what new law or laws you put in place, use the ones that we have in them and leave those of you that believe in the "right to keep and bear arms alone. By the way I do hunt also and it is for the food, learn the facts first before coming up with such cr*p. It is your choice be a citizen or a subject and there fore a target.
I didn't say american hunters never hunt for food--just that most will be not be forced into starvation without hunting.
don't citizens have a responsibility to look out for one another as well as for themselves? guns shred the fabric of trust in a community. do we really want a republic of "every one for himself" and fear and retaliation?
as for defending oneself--does really all boil down to gun ownership? there are plenty of other ways to fend off violent attacks before they happen, and to get out of them when they are imminent. self-defense is largely a matter of psyching out criminal minds, not a matter of having a gun in one's hand--that, by the way, an attacker can turn around and use to his own advantage.
there's no absolute security anywhere, not even from guns.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Pro-choice and pro-2A here. We're also rural, and we hunt and fish. I have my CCW.
Virtually every household in our rural area is an armed household. Gun crimes are virtually unheard of...and the "fabric" of our "community" is perfectly intact.
Although personally i'm vegetarian and question whether humans have the right to eat other animals, i do recognize there is a difference between the way guns are used in communities like yours and communities like mine. I think a lot of gun control advocates do, too.
And thank you for disagreeing civilly.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Not true.
Your words were "...the hunters who (in this country anyway) kill animals primarily for sport and not [sustenance]"
You weren't talking about being "forced into starvation" in your original post.
Also, while you are right that guns are not absolute security, they're a good tool to defend oneself, and one of the only ones you can use without being physically close (i.e. within arm's reach) of an attacker or potential attacker, which is a good advantage.
don't citizens have a responsibility to look out for one another as well as for themselves?
Yes, certainly. But I don't see how that's relevant to the gun debate. Is this a roundabout way of saying you think guns should primarily be in the hands of police?
Gun control is not a reproductive justice issue anymore than work to bring about a world in which women are forced to carry children they do not want to term is.
You're actually advocating "widescale disarmament" so we all can be safer? The founders were very clear that the people must be armed in order to keep the government in check. You are either willing to take a huge gamble on the freedom of future generations or are incredibly naive of history. Time and time again, citizen disarmament has lead to oppression and tyranny. Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Hitler, and countless other mass murders all advocated for gun control. How progressive.
So I'm just like Stalin et al because I want to alleviate the root causes of young people dying violent deaths in my neighborhood?
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
So I'm just like Stalin et al because I want to alleviate the root causes of young people dying violent deaths in my neighborhood?
No. You are nothing like Stalin.
You don't want to alleviate violence in the inner city. You want disarmament of small urban business owners and working class Americans in the small towns. You saw my reply to you that completely demolishes gun control, yet here you continue spouting the refuted points again just like I predicted you would. You are dishonest like Kent Hovind.
I don't want to alleviate gun violence in the inner city?
well, that's news to me. you really think i want all these unfortunate people--my neighbors--dead? you think i'm driven by hatred of 'good, white americans"?
just because we disagree, doesn't make me into a liar. or heartless towards my neighbors, just to make an ideological point!! sheesh!!
Repeating points that have been refuted is LYING!
You are no different than Kent Hovind. Saying the Earth is 6,000 years old and then repeating PRATTs to try to bolster that isn't "disagreement", IT'S LYING.
It's not just "good ole white Americans" you want to disarm and render vulnerable to your gangs. You want the Korean store owners, the Indian store owners rendered vulnerable too. You're not only a liar, you're a hater.
if the lives of black people are precious and irreplaceable, why wouldn't the lives of white, korean, indian and any other kind of person be precious and irreplaceable, too?
to love black people does not equal hating others--although this is an all too common argument against anti-racists.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Yet you knowingly support policies that are favorable to innercity gangs and unfavorable to the targets of those gangs. That's definitely hateful.
every human being has way more to them than the very worst thing they've ever done. you know who i've heard that from the most?
people who work in ministry and social service with prisoners, including gang members and death row inmates--and decidedly not folks who are just getting conned.
to affirm this is *not* to condone gang violence or anything like that, or naively believe that criminals with sociopathic personalities should run around free. believe me, i have called the police on gang members fighting in my alley and dealing drugs on my block.
but you frame the issue in such a black and white, either or manner, there is no room for such a perspective as this.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
I'm sure you want violence reduced in your community.
We just think you're utterly confused about how it can happen. Get rid of guns, and violent criminals will just move on to using knives, as is happening in the U.K.
Criminals can still get guns in U.K. (the Mac-10 is a favorite) but they prefer weapons that don't make too much noise. The Yo Yo Yo gangsta driveby culture hasn't taken root in U.K., yet. Of course my video link shows that criminals can easily make their own guns if they wanted to. The homemade submachinegun I showed is similar to the homemade Luty design. This design was invented by a Brit.
Yes you are, one of the first things both the Marxists and the Facsists did was diarm the citizenry
In any case, it's a little ridiculous to suggest that advocating gun control makes someone a Nazi. Most western democracies have much stricter gun laws than the US, and much less gun-related crime. I don't particularly take a position on gun control in the US - although I don't get the appeal of owning a mini-arsenal - but I'm actually glad I live in a country where guns are regulated.
As far as the right to bear arms as a defense against government tyranny...well, I imagine the founders probably didn't anticipate just how massive and powerful the US military would get. The argument seems a little obsolete, at this point; I do not see how a civilian population, no matter how well-armed, could defeat an American military-backed government.
JMHO.
ETA: There is no need for anyone to lecture me on the second amendment, by the way; I am aware of it, and I'm also aware that the idea of removing or modifying constitutional rights is problematic.
Also, the racism being directed at Marysia in this thread is vile.
Mandatory Pool Fencing in all backyards around the nation must also be a Reproductive Justice Issue, because more children die from drowning than by firearms.
Anyway, I hear firearms rights advocates called "shrill" and "nutty", but this anti-rights piece takes the cake. Filled with false assertions such as "guns constitute the falsest of hopes for personal security" (Go read Civilian Gun Self Defense Blog for true news reports of armed self defense), "collective responsibilities to structurally alleviate poverty" (I read that anywhere in the constitution as an enumerated power of the Federal Government, and poverty is relative, our poor are the richest poor in the world), and of course any plausable connection between supposed "reproductive Justice" (whatever that means. Maybe a right to unregulated spawning of as many broodlings as one wants without reguard to supportability with the expectation others will pay to sustain them?). The article is loony.
Now the issue of mandatory pool fencing is not one from where I live, where kids mostly opened fire hydrants or little plastic wading pools. But if it's a systemic cause of kids drowning, then, yes, it is a reproductive justice issue. Any structural problem that impairs the ability of parents to raise children in a safe and healthy environment.
There are planty of ways to defend oneself without resorting to a gun. but when one is so consumed by fear and paranoia that a gun seems indispensible to save one's own hide, the abundant possibilities for nonviolent defense against violence go by the wayside.
as for:
"a right to unregulated spawning of as many broodlings as one wants without reguard to supportability with the expectation others will pay to sustain them"
why does this sound so much like the very enduring and pernicious stereotypes in US culture about people of color and low-income people who supposely just breed oh so fecklessly and irresponsibly at the expense of the public purse?
if this is indeed where you're coming from, then no wonder you feel your right to an unregulated/underregulated gun industry has absolutely nothing to do with the violent deaths of poor people and people of color...i would prefer to think not, but sometimes i wonder if people whose views on guns come from this sort of attitude towards human beings of color and people in poverty (not all gun advocates, though, just some0 regard gun violence as a means to keep those undesired numbers in check...
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
There are plenty of ways to defend oneself without resorting to a gun.
Do tell.
ahunt, i highly recommend these:
--the book safe passage on city streets by dorothy t. samuel
--gavin de becker's books the gift of fear & protecting the gift
--the insights of the women's self-defense movement.
ideas on nonviolent or minimally violent (punching, kicking, etc) self-defense vary.
but what they all have in common, it seems, is an emphasis on understanding the minds of attackers or would be attackers in order to:
--avert an attack in the first place (for example, by understanding the strategies that perpetrators use to identify and "test out" potential victims).
--if an attack happens, to be prepared to psychologically disarm the attacker so that physical harm to oneself and others involved in the situation is averted or minimized.
an example of the latter:
one time a man came up behind my husband and stuck what he claimed to be a gun into my husband's back. my husband wasn't sure if it was, but he went along with the claim and emptied his wallet for the man instead of clinging defensively to it and escalating the attacker's aggression.
then the assailant protested that my husband "only had" 40 dollars--"all that trouble for nothing!"
but instead of assaulting my husband further because of this disappointing (for him) outcome, the man eased away and did not threaten or harm him further.
my husband credits this to something that his meditation practice prepared him for. he was flooded by a sense of mercy that another human being would be in such misery, whatever it was all about, as to feel it necessary to commit such a deed against another person.
this mercy did not weaken my husband but gave him power in the situation, because the attacker picked up on it and it de-escalated his aggression.
and then my husband reported the incident to the police.
the only thing lost was the 40 dollars, which our family really did need. and the man probably used it to no good end--he had that certain desperate vibe of a robber who robs to fund a drug habit.
but better to lose that money than my husband's life or the life of someone else equally human despite his crime or his probable drug habit, the attacker.
different self-defense strategies work for different situations. but even if you feel you need to carry a concealed gun for self-defense--it could be a last resort, there is so much else that might work instead, before it comes down to pulling out the gun.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Oh Good Heavens Marysia, I did not mean to give you the impression that I am some kind of a gunslinger, and I certainly take care to follow common sense precautions and avoid dangerous situations.
But quite simply, and in the paraphrasing the words of the late Mike Royko, the people who would break into my home to do whatever they please are unworthy of consideration. Odds are good they are 100% fiends, and I possess the skills, plan and werewithal to make them 100% dead, if necessary.
At my age and in my physical condition, flight and unarmed self-defense is out of the question, and in the event of an imminent physical attack, pardon me if I use the fastest and most effective means of "stoppage."
Have I ever been in a position where it was necessary? No. Have I been in a position where the implicit threat of of aggressive response was effective. Yes.
sorry if it sounded that way--i am in no wise mistaking you for a trigger happy gun carrier.
you asked what were the forms of self-defense i had in my mind, so i just listed them and gave an example of one that worked for my husband.
i am a petite person and have several disabilities, so i too am concerned about being assaulted by someone larger and physically stronger. but a lot can be done to prevent harm by psyching out the attacker. i have gotten out of some scrapes this way, uninjured.
as for the character of those who break into others' homes--no, it does not tend to be stellar. but still, violent self-defense needs to be an absolute last resort. why hurt anyone if it can at all be avoided?
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Snerk.
Well, I'm wildly middle-aged and not inclined to put up with much from anyone.
Seriously, Marysia, I'm sorry you have had to endure what you have been subjected to on this thread. As profoundly as I disagree with you, please, please do not associate the average 2A supporter with the posts here. The majority of us are packing Grandma's shotgun, and a significant minority regard venison as "God's red meat."
thank you, and please don't worry, i am not mistaking you or other civil, thoughtful gun advocates with those who have nothing better to offer than gratuitous personal insults in the way of argument.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
"...but even if you feel you need to carry a concealed gun for self-defense--it could be a last resort..."
I believe that most people who rely on firearms feel that is is just one additional piece of "safety equipment", and one that should only be used in the gravest extreme.
Sounds like another person has finally stepped into the light of reason with respect to the usefulness of firearms in self defense, albeit a bit grudgingly. Welcome! I think you find that your beliefs about armed self defense and individual freedoms are not disparate from most armed civilians.
I find your obvious reluctance to embrace gun ownership to be a bit perplexing. After all, human history is replete with reproduction being forced upon women, as women had no practical way to resist rape or other coercive means of reproduction. Certainly the light of reproductive justice is not the cause of that gleam in the rapist's eye. Only in 1836 did women finally begin to have the option to resist attempts at forced reproduction, with the production of the first practical repeating handgun, Colt's revolver. While early handguns were often large heavy and unwieldy, small, lightweigh,t easily concealed and carried, modern firearms give the modern women the true final say about when and with whom she chooses to reproduce, especially in the face of a male who might be willing to disregard her wishes.
As far as non-lethal defense options when faced with a deadly weapon: Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck has spend 30 years researching issues surround gun control. Professor Kleck is a self-described liberal, card-carrying member of the ACLU, and a lifelong registered Democrat. After careful review and research into self defense and gun control issues, he is also now decidedly pro-gun. He states that intellectual honesty in the face of the data allows him no other choice. His published research clearly shows that, when faced with an armed attack, the best way to die or get seriously hurt is unarmed resistance, followed by offering no resistance at all. The safest (for the victim, that is) course when faced with an armed attack is armed resistance with a firearm. In other words, and statistically speaking, nice guys who don't resist finish last, while mean guys and gals who resist criminal aggression with a gun in their hands have the best chance of going home to their families that evening.
I bid you welcome to the large and growing mass of people who feel that self defense with a firearm one possible option when faced with a criminal assualt and I hope most sincerely that if you are ever faced with the ultimate reproductive injustice, rape, that you will be well prepared to defend your life and your rights.
Cheers!
The second amendment was put in place to protect the citizens from a tyrannical government as was stated above. Think about where all these shootings that have been happening lately are...They are all in GUN FREE ZONES. This means that law abiding citizens are not going to have a gun them, but a criminal doesn't care. They want a target that is not going to fight back. That is exactly what these GUN FREE ZONES offer....nonresistance. Criminal has a gun...everyone else...nothing..It's already been stated that the police don't have to protect you from anything. I for one will protect myself. Average response time for a police call 6 min..average response time for a gun...spit second you choose. I will protect the Constitution of the United States of America from foreign and domestic enemies.
a lot of the gun criminals are at the end of a supply chain that begins in perfectly legal but unregulated channels. these channels exist with the full blessing of the gun industry, which profits immensely in this way.
in countries where such channels do not exist, where the gun industry does not have the government in its pocket, the rates of gun violence are so low, they put the US to shame.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
On the creation vs evolution threads, there is a term called P.R.A.T.T. This points to fallacies such as the thermodynamics fallacy that creationists use to repeatedly make points that were already refuted.
And here you are, taking the same tactics from the Kent Hovind and Duane Gish playbook. YOU ARE DISHONEST MARYSIA. Repeating PRATTs is an act of DISHONESTY. You repeat the same lie EVEN AFTER I SHOW A VIDEO VIVIDLY SHOWING THE FUTILITY OF GUN CONTROL! Even after I mention digital fabrication and nanotechnology trends!
in countries where such channels do not exist, where the gun industry does not have the government in its pocket, the rates of gun violence are so low, they put the US to shame.
You mean like Brazil and South Africa? You are dishonest.
Demography determines crime rates.
In Switzerland almost every adult male is a member of the military reserve. That means that they are required by Law to have in their homes MILITARY grade automatic rifles and ammo,
And not the pathetic look like a military rifle, semi-automatic faux-assault rifles but the real thing.
So your premise is invalid and the violence is not caused by the prevalence and assesibility of weapons, but is cultural
You can't persuade me that all of the deceased young men, of whatever color, would still be alive had there been no guns available.
Human beings are clever, inventive and innovative. It they choose to kill, they will find the means.
And please, don't even start to assert that it's somehow the fault of white people if people of color choose to blow one another away. If you choose to cast yourself as a victim, then that's exactly what you'll be. It's a shame, but if that's the best thinking you can do, I suppose you'll have to live with the results.
but when it's just fists or sticks or even switchblades, a lot fewer lives get taken away.
yes, when people of color commit crimes against one another, there's an inescapable element of personal responsibility. but it's the majority-white gun industry and gun lobby that profit off the big market that ends up through legal channels in the inner city. it's wealthy white people who fuel the drug trade behind so much of the violence. don't they have blood on their hands, too?
if you are someone who "got out of the hood'--what about everyone who still lvies there, for whatever reason? no one deserves to be unsafe in their own neghborhood. there is an element of victimization here that's quite real and unfair.
and i'm not talking about 'victimhood thinking" or abdicating personal responsibility and self-reliance. my young black grandson is going to learn that he has the responsibility to be a compassionate, dignified, and concerned person no matter what indignities and brutalities get thrown his way. i am also involved in community gardening which is a way to grow food security, beauty, and peace oneself in concert with others.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Poor urban white people manage their guns safely, why can't blacks? The answer's quite simple, the gun violence(half of which is suicide and so can't be considered gun violence since it's been proven time and again that access to guns does little to nothing to the suicide rate) is nothing more than a symptom. Treating symptoms is at best a stopgap measure, one that may harm the patient more than help. Moreover, to actually cut off the supply of manufactured guns you would have to utterly violate, at minimum, the second, fourth, fifth, ninth, and tenth amendments. Since this is the US, not communist fucking China, that's not the way things go. Since one cannot violate those amendments, even if one were to completely ignore the 2nd amendment any gun control that is otherwise constitutional will be highly ineffectual at best. Basically, things would be the same as they are now, except none of the guns would be legal, which means you would inevitably have people who are otherwise law-abiding but who would refuse to disarm themselves at the tyranny of the majority being thrown in jail(or dying along with quite a few cops/troops). Thus, there is no benefit to gun control other than it being a feel good measure by people too afraid to address the issues.
Ravenshrike, it is amazing how these gun ban charlatans blame poverty for the random gang violence of the black community. How come impoverished white communities lack such rates of crime? How come penniless Asian immigrants that come to the U.S. have crime rates less than that of Whites? Even impoverished hispanic immigrants have crime rates that are less than the black community! The black community must own up to this serious problem and take responsibility for this and stop blaming other races for their problem of random violence. This blame game will only ruin race relations even further. Why do I call people like Marysia, charlatans? I showed a freaking video of a homemade submachine gun that completely falsifies their notion that gun bans reduce gun availability. I even mentioned technological trends in decentralized digital fabrications that make moot any of their gun control points. What do they do? They repeated their refuted point over and over again like a religious flat earth zealot who's been shown the Apollo spacecraft picture of Planet Earth!
When you divide people of color into the "good, model" minorities and the "bad" minorities...well, that's an analysis that people of color generally find to be quite counterproductive and scapegoating....
almost all communities of color face problems of poverty and violence, and ranking different groups according to whether or not they are "good" in white-determined terms does not do anything to help with the problems.
why do you assume that blackfolk just sit around blaming "big bad whitey" instead of getting off their rumps and solving their own problems?
every day i bear witness to black people facing their problems with courage and mercy and resourcefulness. i don't think, for example, the black people who try to intervene and de-escalate gang violence when it sounds to be in the offing--who personally put their own lives on the line for the sake of others and for the whole community--are sitting on their lazy rumps blaming big bad whitey for anything. and there are many, many other examples. it's more the order of the day than the exception.
however, poverty in the black community is an outcome of pernicious institutions and social policies that are directly descended from slavery. as important and essential as individual bravery and resourcefulness and heart are, there is still a system of discrimination that grinds even very strong people down or wearies them beyond measure. that doesn't make gun violence right by any measure, but that does make it more than an issue of individual black people's characters.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
"a feel good measure by people too afraid to address the issue"?
there is nothing "feel good" or "too afraid" about, for example, seeing a young person stretched out in a casket, cold and dead, as i have, or listening to young people shooting at each other on a summer's night and calling the police and hoping they get there before anybody dies.
you may not agree with me about the solutions, but kindly please refrain from these attempts at character assasination.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Well if those young black men who decide to join gangs go in a gangbang shootout and end up in caskets, the first thing that appears in my mind is that they're fucking morons. They deserve their Darwin Award for being stupid.
Really, so you have some shred of reliable and valid evidence that banning guns will in any way/shape/or form improve the current situation? Cause if you do, let's see it. As it stands, you've shown nothing. Which means the thing you advocate is something you want done simply because it makes you FEEL BETTER. It makes you feel in control, instead of completely powerless to directly change the situation as things currently stand.
I don't give a DAMN who the black community blames, they could blame space aliens for all I care, but the moment they try to fuck with my rights; the moment anyone tries to control my life because they don't have their ducks all in a row, THAT's when I get pissed.
1)Inability to sort out the cause of a phenomenon from merely incidental items shows weak thinking.
2)Use of Marxist language and phrasing shows a writer who has been indoctrinated rather than educated.
3)The belief that an inanimate object played a causal role in a situation resulting from human action reveals that the writer believes in magic, not science.
This essay shows all three failings, illustrated in order below:
1)Guns do not do the killing: vicious criminals do.
2)"This framing of the gun issue prevents Americans from taking up the collective responsibilities we have too long failed: our collective responsibilities to structurally alleviate poverty, classism, and racism." There are no collective responsibilities: only individual ones. We are human beings, not ants.
3)If you load a gun and lay it on your table, it will never rise up, aim itself, and fire a round. That would be magic. When an angry person who was raised without standards, discipline or respect for others picks it up, watch out. Then you would be wise to have a gun of your own. Otherwise you are defenseless.
because i disagree with you, i can't think my way out of a paper bag regarding what goes in my own neighborhood, and so many others like it?
marxist? that's kinda comic, because some of my family hails from a country that was oppressed by the soviets. so i'm not too keen on the kind of big-government horrors you associate with gun control.
to say that humans have collective responsibilities (as well as individual) is not to make us ants. it's to say that we are all responsibile for the kind of society we have now and can create in the future, including the kinds of oppressive hierarchies we can either choose to perpetuate or dismantle.
the kind of society that says gun industry profits matter more than the precious lives of people like my neighbors is one that merits a nonviolent uprising against the policies and instituttions that allow this to go on.
by the way, being without a gun does not make me defenseless. i have over the years gotten out of many situations with potential attackers because i have been fortunate to learn about and to practice nonviolent methods of self-defense. no one died or got hurt, including me.
i don't like what would be attackers had on their minds towards me, but i'm glad i didn't blast them away.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Gun Industry, eh?
So what gun industry produced this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhbdW9SxEM
So what big gun company are you going to blame when digital fabrication and nanofactories become common in the Twenty-First Century?
Repeating PRATTs once again, just like ole Kent Hovind who is in jail right now for fraud.
My elderly aunt and uncle lived through an experience where a punk was trying to breakdown their bedroom door, after having broken in the front door ONLY because my uncle kept a shotgun in his bedroom closet,
The punk had a ballpeen hammer and had been on a spree of beating elderly people to death in their homes
Had YOUR wishes been in power my cousins might have found their parents beaten to death on their bedroom floor some days after the event
WOW I am certainly glad our founding fathers had more sense then you seem to have.
"Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would." -- John Adams, Boston Gazette
I am a brown skinned immigrant member of the gun culture.
From reading your post, I suspect that you have never handled a gun for a safe and responsible purpose, including that of defending yourself and your family. You seem to have accepted anti-gun propaganda as fact. I was once like you, when I first came to this country. I blindly swallowed all the anti-gun propaganda in the media, before doing my own independent research and coming to the opposite conclusion.
Thus, it is not surprising that you do not know that historically, gun control laws first targeted people of color who could not be trusted to own guns:
Since your spam filter complains about links, I suggest you search Google for these two articles:
The Racist Roots of Gun Control by Clayton Cramer
and A Liberal Democrat's Lament by Robert Cottrol
When the NRA and the gun lobby works hard as it has in recent years to guarantee gun rights to EVERYONE, the biggest beneficiaries are the traditionally marginalized - minorities, women and the poor, who regain their right to own and carry guns free of discriminating laws and legal practices. Minorities, women and the poor can now protect themselves with guns in their homes in the San Francisco housing projects - thanks to the gun lobby. They can compulsorily obtain licenses to carry concealed handguns regardless of the favor and discretion of the sheriff in 40 states of the Union - thanks to the gun lobby.
Refuse to be a victim. Learn how to use and own a gun like a responsible citizen.
By the way, this site's spam filter is malfunctioning and refusing to accept posts with any hyperlinks.
Look at the history of gun control and you will find out about the evil it truly represents. Why do you think groups like the KKK have had a long love affair with gun control? In the very early days of the United States, some blacks were free.(their slave masters freed them in their will, for example) These free negros were considered a threat, and over decades many, many laws were enacted to prohibit them from owning firearms. Look up the Turner Rebellion to get a better picture on how these polices were implemented following perceived threats from armed blacks. The trend continued after the Civil War.
Today, areas of the country with the most restrictive gun laws happen to correspond to the areas with the highest density and per-capita most black and other minority populations.
The whole idea that 2nd Amendment supporters and the policies they advocate are racist is preposterous!!! Its a shame the author and this publication continue to perpetuate these fallacies.
kevin and zim zam--the problems with these historical gun control laws is not that they controlled guns, but that they were not applied across the board to all ethnic groups.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
To inner city gangs, this is rather pointless.
Deacons for Defense and Justice
The Deacons for Defense and Justice were an armed self defense African American civil rights organization in the U.S. Southern states during the 1960s.The organization practiced self-defense methods in the face of racist oppression that was carried out by Jim Crow Laws; local and state agencies; and the Ku Klux Kla
The Deacons for Defense and Justice were an armed self defense African American civil rights organization in the U.S. Southern states during the 1960s.The organization practiced self-defense methods in the face of racist oppression that was carried out by Jim Crow Laws; local and state agencies; and the Ku Klux Kla
If you want to know the real reason that Black Marxists support gun control, they expect Whitey (or Korean store owners and other productive classes) to obey the gun control laws while their inner city youth gangs won’t. Thereby the victims within the productive classes will be defenseless against those gangs. Look up “plaasmorde” to see what they want to happen here.
On the bright side, the rise of decentralized manufacturing as rendered gun control obsolete. Nanotechnology will eventually destroy the gun control movement. I believe that since most people in the productive classes know how useless and dangerous obeying gun laws are, I don’t expect much compliance with them. In fact the passing of a gun ban would lead to uprisings. So in effect, the Black Marxists are simply delusional.
To show how obsolete gun control is, look at this video of a homemade submachine gun that was built with todays garage tools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhbdW9SxEM
Now imagine what digital fabricators and nanofactories can do!
It would racist for those Korean store owners to contest the democratic mob position with voting from the rooftops.
The irony of this is that the biggest victims of the Black Marxists are ordinary blacks.
The "Black Marxists" who are out to make ideological points rather than care about their family members and neighbors dying in the streets?
Sounds like a stereotype of "marauding black militants' from about 1970...
as for the 'productive classes"...man, sorry if i'm wrong, but that too is just leading me me to have some uncharitable thoughts about what that R in R7 might stand for...
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Here's a quiz for you. Since you claim that you actually care about neighbors in your innercity neighborhood, do you support sentencing gangbangers to life in prison without any possibility of parol/or death?
First of all, not every person who gets involved in a gang is personally guilty of homicide. The crimes and culpabilities of any particular gang member need to be assessed and responded to individually, with due process. A ten year old courier of reefer dime bags is not the same as the adult head honcho ordering hits or carrying them out himself.
I am against the death penalty. Except in exceptional circumstances as a last resort for self-defense, no human being--and certainly not the state--should have that power of life and death over another human being.
The issue of wrongful conviction is especially serious in regard to the death penalty, because losing your life for a crime you didn't commit is even more irrevocable than spending some years in prison for it. This is a very real issue. A family close to mine has personally experienced it, although their family member luckily won acquittal before the death sentence was carried out.
Life without parole, however, is a just sentence in *some* cases, though generally not for juveniles. it *may* be the most judicious sentence for some, but for that to happen, due process has to happen.
there are severe problems with the criminal justice system. At the same time it's stacked against people of color and the poor in terms of racial profiling, these are the very same Americans least able to access good legal representation. And up against a "prison-industrial complex" that profits from their imprisonment. the fact that, say, so many african american males have been in jail is not due to the "inherent criminality" of black men.
And the focus of the "justice" system is on retribution , not on prevention, restorative justice, and rehabiliation, even in those cases where it's possible. As if this country would, say, rather lock up a woman whose child is born with drugs in his/her system, rather than fund drug treatment programs for pregnant women adequately.
Better than locking up all gang members is this: supporting parents in the difficult job of raising kids. giving young people positive, lost-lasting alternatives to joining a gang. another positive strategy is community policing, which enables police and neighborhood to work together rather than at odds. it's lowered the crime rate here.
and then there is the organization, which has its counterparts elsewhere, mostly of former gang members who personally and nonviolently intervene for the sake of prevention when they learn that a homicide is in the offing. groups like this have saved hundreds of lives, and persuaded some gang members to take other paths.
And if you think any of the above makes me "soft on crime"--guess again. Again, just as with a belief in gun control, the above beliefs about crime and punishment are quite widespread in the neighborhoods where we deal with violent crime regularly and hope and work fervently for its abolition.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
You are making ideological points. Ignoring a refutation of your points is very telling.
I highly suspect that you are not interested in a discussion as much as you are in proving yourself a priori right.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Based upon your latest posts, you reveal your hatred of the other races. You don't want them to defend themselves, at the same time you want leniency on the very inner city gangs that generate the violence. Your intentions are quite malevolent. To see your policies in effect, look at South Africa.
As far as killing other humans in self defense, I have the natural right to kill other humans who attempt to prey on me. Whether you like it or not, humans are part of the animal kingdom and the rules of survival against a predator apply to the human ape. We are not special.
i am not advocating "leniency"--but something that really is more tough minded and difficult than just blasting away the bad guys or throwing them on the electric chair!
as for south africa--i've been there, dude. in the very townships that you apparently imagine to be swarming with gangs of genocidal gun totin black folk, instead of being populated by human beings who still grapple with the legacy of apartheid, including systemic issues of pvoerty and crime that resemble but are even worse than what african americans deal with.
the problem is not that with the police repression of apartheid suddenly removed, the black folk just had no idea at all how to handle and so their bad animalistic selves erupted out of control. the problem was that the government did not properly fund security and police so that all ethnic groups were properly and equally protected. whites could usually hire their own private security, but the african and coloured populations were mostly left on their own.
yes, human beings are part of the animal kingdom, but even predatory animals are far more civil than we. there is no evidence to suggest that they gloat over blowing the bad guys away and ruminate about revenge and their natural right to violence. they kill other animals to eat, and that's that. there's an innocence about it that is lacking in human violence.
human beings most surely do have problems with aggression, but we also have brains and hearts and imaginations to find ways of creating peace, even in very difficult and threatening circumstances. i don't mean this in any pie in the sky way, i am talking about here and now and practical reality.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
You certainly have no leniency toward gun owners in America. You seem to have no problem initiating government violence against them, based on fraudulent notions. Other predatory animals are no more civil or less civil than the human animal. Cats play with mice because its fun to them. Chimpanzees have the same instincts of revenge and tribalism as humans (we're both social great apes). The fun and pleasure centers are the same in other mammals. We are not special.
And yet you seem inclined to forcibly seize the property of people in a sort of forced reparations.
But control the guns all days please!!!
Sorry, Marysia - aside from your complete lack of an educated position on the history of gun control, you give up any right to lecture anyone from a moral perspective when you capitalize designations for your preferred ethnicities while using lowercase to describe those of whose skin colors you disapprove.
Let me be as clear as I can - capitalizing Black and Brown while using lowercase for "white" makes you a disgusting race-baiting gutter dweller.
Thus, you give up any claim to my attention to your uninformed and racist opinion.
for the record, i write professionally on black and other ethnic history and am well aware of the historical issues. different people with brains in their heads and hearts in their chests can interpret the same "facts" differently. the question, brave brave anonymous, is not "who's the disgusting race-baiting gutter dweller," but which set of interpretations is sounder.
for another, i am inconsistent when i type about capitalization, period, because of a hand disability. for you to read virulent racism into my inconsistent capitalizations is to read something that isn't there.
also, "white," like any racial designation, is pretty problematic. i just use white, black, brown as shorthand to be understood, but these categories have serious limitations. "brown" could be mexican american or indian american. indian american could be gujarati or tamil. "black" could be a recent immigrant from kenya or the descendant of slaves from senegal and angola who has also irish and choctaw descent. "white" could be from poland or from england. to name just a few examples.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
As far as your attempt to paint me as a coward because I choose not to identify myself: I simply don't care to have any interchange with you beyond pointing out the craven hypocrisy of your moral bankruptcy and racism. Thus, no need for me to identify myself because I won't be coming back here after you realize that your self-serving protestations are doing you no good and you stop engaging me.
Now, as to your blatant and disgusting racism:
Uses of the word "Black" in reference to dark-skinned people in your article: 4
Number of times the word is capitalized: 4
Uses of the word "Brown" in reference to dark-skinned people in your article: 1
Number of times the word is capitalized: 1
Uses of the word "white" in reference to non-dark-skinned people in your article: 2
Number of time the word is lowercase: 2
Thus, not only are you a racist, a coward, and an ignorant moral pygmy, you are a liar. And a pretty bad one at that. Only a coward would use a physical disability to excuse her bigotry.
But keep it up, you disgusting troglodyte. Every word you spew only affirms for everyone reading here that your racism is intractable and deeply ingrained.
It is also quite telling that she continues to repeat the point that gun control reduces gun availability to the gangs right after I show a video of a homemade submachine gun. Right after I point out technological trends in decentralized manufacturing. This indicates that her real intentions have nothing to do with safeguarding the lives of law abiding neighbors in her community. Her lenient attitude toward gang banging scum pretty much exposes her real intentions. If you want to get an idea of what people like her have in store for working class whites, Korean store owners and others, look at South Africa. Imagine members of the disarmed productive class being killed in gruesome ways by genocidal black gangs armed with illegal automatic weapons. Meanwhile the government takes a lenient approach to those gangs while strictly punishing members of the productive class if they defend themselves. That's what Marysia wants based upon the posts she wrote. She's a hater.
Marysia is delusional and hateful.
Another thing, the gun banners are definitely delusional zealots. Imagine showing pictures of the spherical Earth from Apollo 8 or pictures of Earth's curvature from Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne to a Flat Earth Zealot, only to have the zealot ignore the data and repeat his refuted point over and over again. That's what Marysia reminds me of.
R&-you're the hateful fanatic-you have attacked Marysia visciously for having an opinion that differs from yours. Marysia has simply argued a position that many people in the US hold, which is that guns are too availble to those who shouldn't be them in their posession and often harm black or minority communities because black and minority individuals are more likely to be in poverty or in the inner cities where such violence takes place. I don't necessarily agree with everything in this post, but she elucidated her position eloquently and with compassion. You, in contrast, have repeatedly called her names.
"Well behaved women seldom make history."-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Marysia has repeated a refuted point over and over again to support throwing innocent people in jail. That is a form of dishonesty. Compassion and emotion are trumped by reality. Not only that, I exposed her so-called compassion as nothing but crocodile tears. She shows love to the very gangs that generate the violence yet shows hostility towards the people who would arm and defend themselves from these rotten predators. And here are you, supporting Marysia's PRATT like a good little toady. Ms Kent Hovind has finally found her partner in pseudoscience, Ms Duane Gish.
the previous comment was intended for progo35.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
well, thank you so much for telling me just what i am! how could i have ever known without your generous service?
the previous comment was intended for r7.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
R7-You didn't "expose" anything, you expressed an opinion. There's a huge difference.
"Well behaved women seldom make history."-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Saying the Earth is round isn't an opinion, it is a fact. She stated that gun bans reduce the availability of guns. Then I showed that guns can be manufactured by criminals, refuting her point. She then repeats the refuted point in much the same manner the Young Earth Creationists like Kent Hovind do. This (http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect16/full-20earth2.jpg) isn't opinion, it is fact. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhbdW9SxEM) isn't opinion, it is fact. Fablabs exist, that's a fact, not an opinion. Believing that Marysia's motives are possibly malevolent is opinion. Stating that she used a dishonest debating tactic (knowingly repeating P.R.A.T.Ts) is a fact. Of course you will simply ignore it and call such objective data as "opinion".
Based on your posts, I suspect that you're a "concern troll".
Here's the definition:
A person who lurks, then posts, on a site or blog, expressing concern for policies, comments, attitudes of others on the site. It is viewed as insincere, manipulative, condescending. In an argument, a concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with "concerns". The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally.
Examples:
A concern troll commented, "You should be careful about what you write because you might get in trouble with the government." Another concern troll wrote, "This debate makes our side look disorganized."
You show "concern" about my opinion of a person who used a fraudulent argument (using P.R.A.T.Ts repeatedly, a common debating tactic used by creationists on creation vs evolution threads) to advocate the use of government force to disarm people who made the right decision not to be a robbing, murdering, raping scumbag. She makes it worse by masking such malevolence with "compassion",.... for the scumbag! This is why I see your "concerns" as insincere.
r7, since you profess concern about racism:
are you aware that many african americans find the term "spade," as in "a spade is a spade," to be racially offensive?
i am hoping you didn't mean to use a racial insult here, but unfortunately, judging from a lot of other things you have said here, i would not put it past you.
an uneasy proportion of the insults you have levelled here, such as "troglodyte" and "hater" bear a striking resemblance to historically quite engrained insults against african americans.
i wonder if you think my race is black. if you thought i was white, i wonder, would you be so fast and loose with the adhominem arguments, and these particular ones?
i don't know what your story is, man, but you are sure a wonderment.
Trying to change the subject on gun control eh? I caught you redhanded using a dishonest debating tactic, that's when I knew I had to call a liar, a liar.
Is the meaning of the phrase
A Spade is a Spade and has as much racial connotation
as the Scaninaviam derived Middle English word
Niggardly
To be succinct NONE, except for those who wish to beat the racist drum at anything they think sounds like a word they do not like
By the way what could possibly be offensive about a phrase
that means
Speaking honestly and directly
If it should denote a racial origin, which it does not, wouldn't it instead of being offensive be a complement?
There is absolutely nothing in the article to support its title's claim. Not one link was made between gun control and reproductive justice. The article does nothing to explain what guns have to do with the right to control one's reproductive decisions. It sort of explains why it's a human rights issue, but the fact that it mentions children and mothers does not make it a reproductive rights issue.
I'm baffled as to how this could be considered relevent to reproductive health/justice at all.
Gun control has traditionally been about keeping Blacks unarmed. And Democrats have always been in the lead on that.
R7, good job. But, let me summarize so far what Marysia has said in defense to your argument(s). Well, aside from Racist!!!1!
"shut up"
The racist framing going on here is being done by the author, who assumes that low income gun owners of color are irresponsible and/or criminals. While there is certainly a cohort of black people that fits the description, there are many, many responsible black gun owners across all economic strata. And the notion that gun rights are a reproductive rights issue is a ridiculous stretch of logic.
...in that there would be arguments in favor of it, if it worked. But it does not work. It never has. It never will.
Someone mentioned that if guns are banned, knives will be used, as in the UK. Although the Brits are now making great and hilarious efforts toward Knife Control, in fact, gun crime has increased fourfold since the 1997 Firearms Act which outlawed handguns.
It hasn't decreased. It hasn't remained steady. It hasn't gone up just a small amount. It has increased fourfold.
How anyone can see that, and then posit that gun control is anything other than useless at best or counter-productive at worst defies my imagination.
Its "sustenance", not "substinence". No spell check?
Why is it Maryisa, that in MY community, where almost every single household is legally armed, we have exceedingly low rates of violent crime?
The only narrative that would seem to fit that dichotomy is that you are insinuating that blacks (or poor blacks) are by their nature violent and place no value on human life.
The most well armed communities in this country are demonstrably safer than those with the most draconian gun control laws, so it can't be the guns.
Its "sustenance", not "substinence". No spell check?
Who knew. You should write the Alaska Department of Fish and Game
http://www.subsistence.adfg.state.ak.us/
Uhh, Colleen, "subsistence" isn't "substinence", either.
Uhh, Colleen, "subsistence" isn't "substinence", either.
And Mike's a moron. So what?
Well Colleen, there are many hunters who hunt for sustenance, which is simply an alternate food supply. If however, you're lifestyle is based on subsistence hunting, that means if you didn't hunt you wouldn't have enough food period. Simple put, subsistence hunting is a rather disting subset of sustenance hunting. It's also something that people in remoter parts of Alaska do, thus the website.
Remind me again, the origin of the term “Saturday Night Special” and then wonder who exactly treats “low-income people of color” as inferior with regards to firearms.
Gawd, Marysia is such a dupe.
"Why else would there be so many more gun crimes and deaths in *those* neighborhoods?"
Maybe because dupes like Marysia don’t trust “those people” to have guns, thus ensuring that the civilized residents of “those” areas are easy prey for bands of marauding savages? Naw, couldn't be that....
It WAS the gun control that made them helpless. That and making bad choices of whom to associate with. I used to wait for it every time - you’d hear some horrible story … house shot-up, little kids killed. Everyone would be mortified. Then it would come out that the family/parents were drug dealers or something.
Bad things happen to stupid people. If you’re going to be a drug dealer, or date a drug dealer or whatever, DON’T HAVE CHILDREN. Keep YOUR CHILDREN AWAY.
That’s should be a mother’s message.
The Constitutional right to bear arms should end this discussion, period.
Professional victim is what I read in Marysia's whinings. Every complaint she has relates to behaviors, not hardware and the same is true of the solution to her neighborhood killings. Every action she deplores in her hood is the exercise of free will by free people, not homicidal mania forced on dark people by light people. Guns are like any tool, only as good as the worker who holds it. It takes some twisted thinking to blame obesity in America on farmers for growing too much food. It also takes some mental oragami to blame criminality on guns, bullets, and law abiding white people, though not all white skinned people obey the law, and not all darker skinned people disobey. I'll keep clinging to my guns, loaded. Just don't bring your evil intentions to my house.
The next town over passed an ordinance several years ago that requires every homeowner to keep a firearm in the home. The burglary rate went to zero and remains so. Our state also just passed the "do not retreat" law, which allows me to make burglars DRT (dead right there) as they enter. Rebuild the family, teach morality, and quit thinking of other people as things.
That Bill of Rights is a pain in the ass, huh?
Anyone who genuinely wants to see crime like this end should support ending the drug war. The War on Drugs started out life as Jim Crow laws and they are still working. This is unforgivable. End the drug war and all of this killing ends, overnight. It has nothing to do with guns. The only reason these people even have guns is to protect their black market super-profits. Regulate drugs like tobacco and alcohol instead of prohibiting them completely and our gun crime will fall to near European levels.
I agree wholeheartedly about this stupid drug war peter jackson.
Don't waste your time stating the obvious folks -they know that gun control only works on law abiding citizens and that's is exactly who they are trying to take the guns away from. They fear the 30 some odd million guns in this country that God-fearing, anti-big government-control people have in their possession. Before the power brokers complete their takeover of this once free nation, I suspect that they may have to deal with them someday. This is just another in the many decade's long line of gun confiscation justification attempts that have been hung out for the ignorant in the public to consume and repeat.
I'd hate to derail the thread even further from the issue (how gun control relates to reproductive rights, a link which the article does not make at all), but I once heard an interesting argument that the second amendment IS gun control.
[b]A well regulated Militia[/b], being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I've heard it argued that this means that the right to bear arms is intended to apply only to people in the militia. The Second Amendment does say that the reason is because a militia is important, right?
Unrelated to that but related to gun control, some song lyrics: Ani DiFranco | To The Teeth
The first half of the sentence DOES NOT modify the second half. Not to mention the ratified version of the second amendment has 1 comma. Moreover, if the sentence was this "A well-educated electorate being necessary to the preservation of a free society, the right of the people to read and compose books shall not be infringed" given your Myspace page I seriously doubt that you would remotely accept ANY limitation an a person's right to read and write.
Quote stolen from guncite.com
And by any limitation, I mean you would not limit reading and writing to legal residents 18 and above(the definition of electorate).
To quote my article--I do make the link:
"The right to raise our children in a safe, healthy environment is a core demand of reproductive justice. Not surprisingly, this demand arises from the very communities of color most devastated by gun violence. As well as an obvious pro every life concern, gun control is a reproductive justice issue."
And thank you for your interpretations of the Second Amendment.
Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com
Sanya, did you miss the recent Supreme Court decision on Heller vs. Washington DC? The Second Amendment is officially now an individual right.
Actually it always has been an individual right, and was universally understood as one until about 1970, but people played with the somewhat backwards 18th century wording for the past several decades as an attempt to pretend that it wasn't an individual right. The way the words of the 2A are written mean "here is just one reason for the right to exist, and here is the right". It does not mean "this is the only reason for the right to exist, and here is the right". Although in those days, there was no standing army and no national guard. Any adult male was a member of the militia when needed. And they brought their own guns.
And just a few weeks ago, the 9th Circuit Court made a ruling that the Second was Incorporated. That legal decision isn't national yet, but it's a start of another pro-2A movement: like your right to free speech, the right to arms is inalienable and can not be restricted by state or local law. As the gun lobby says "what part of 'shall not be infringed' don't you understand?"
This is a joke, right?
"Including the children who grow up here knowing every day what children shouldn't have to think about too much: that their lives could be cut short on purpose by someone else in an irrevocable instant." from the original post.
This statement describes abortion perfectly to me.
Abortion is a form of violent death that ends, by population proportions, more minority pregnancies than non-minority pregnancies. That sounds like a form of racism to me. Genocide, in fact.
