Published Apr 26, 2007, 2:12pm
In the end, it really is all about race.
Tuesday’s march at the Pennsylvania capitol steps to decry proposed legislation got more headlines than it deserved thanks to a sign in the crowd calling for the “lynching” of state Rep. Angel Cruz because he dared to introduce the legislation (free speech issues notwithstanding) misses the bigger point.
If you happen to be black, Pennsylvania is the place you are most likely to be shot to death in the entire United States.
While other places, such as Washington D.C., passed laws banning hand guns (later tossed by the courts) to try to stem gun violence, this very slight attempt to make gun owners in any way accountable for their weapons and actions in Pennsylvania was met by a furor. While the race issue only really was mentioned because of the sign, race is one of the fundamental issues in the gun argument.
Because blacks make up a greater percentage of the lowest economic classes than the overall population, many end up surrendering hope and become involved in criminal, violent lives. And sure, it happens to poor whites, too, but because the economic deck continues to be stacked against the black community, frankly, there are less options.
Maybe it was simpler, more honest when White America just lynched black people. Now we smile paternally, box them up in urban housing projects, send them to underfunded, dysfunctional schools and expect them to grow up and become upstanding citizens. That so many do is a credit to parents, teachers and millions of other caring adults. And yes, most of those who go bad, choose to do so.
But the math doesn’t lie: unless you’re so overtly racist to suggest that black people are inferior in character (which ignores reams of research that indicate that skin color remains the only major difference between the races), the death rates in the black community (as well as the earning rates, single parent family rates and so on) would seem to be caused by environmental factors, not genetics.
So basically, what we continue to have is a slow-motion lynching, couched in paternal, smiling White people-terms. Keep them poor, keep them uneducated and by all means, arm them. The results, as seen in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Lancaster and dozens of other Pennsylvania cities is predictable: black people get shot to death, many of them innocent people working hard to beat a game stacked against them.
As was the case with the Jim Crow South, a small minority of racists was allowed to force something completely wrong to happen because people lacked the will to do something about it.
The only thing wrong with Cruz’ bill is that it is too weak and will have only a minimal impact on the daily killings that happen in the commonwealth every day.
And while the bill was fought with predictable ferocity by the usual idiots: Rep. Bill DeWeese, Rep. Steve Barrar and so on, a lot of normally sane, intelligent legislators lacked the will to support unpopular but right legislation. As I recall, a century ago, lynchings were also very popular, but clearly wrong.
Interestingly, a lot of these pro-gun terrorists (realistically, what do you call people who support senseless killing?) are also among the rabid opponents of abortion. But apparently, the right to life doesn’t extend past birth.
So where does that leave us?
Unfortunately, no where. Another 30,000 people will die this year at the hands of guns — 10 times the number of people killed on 9/11. A disproportionally large number of those killed with be black. Those aren’t opinions, those are facts.
The National Rife Association, responsible for more American deaths in 2006, than Al Queda has been since coming into existence, continues to beat the drums for gun “rights.”
What rights? Even if the Second Amendment means people owning guns (which is arguable, since it likely referred to raising militias, not individuals owning Glock 9s) the framers never intended people own semi-automatic weapons, as it is hard to go on a killing spree with a barrel-loading musket. The framers, I’ll note, also signed off on slavery. As times changed, we changed with them, ending slavery, allowing women to vote and so on. And there's not one little word in the Constitution that says such weapons shouldn't in any way be regulated.
And where do you draw the line? Right now, I could go out and buy an AK-47, as long as it was modified to fire only in semi-automatic mode. Why can’t I have a rocket-propelled grenade? The Second Amendment says I can bear arms — in fact, one could just as convincingly argue that I have to right to raise my own army and equip it as I see fit — so what’s the limit?
The limit is, of course, common sense. If I raised an armored division of my own, the government would swoop in on me and haul me off to jail and disarm me, as it should, most people would agree. So what’s the acceptable level of threat?
More than five years later, we have thousands of troops looking (without success) for the people who attacked the U.S. on 9/11, yet people can’t even sue Smith & Wesson, which profits from the death of thousands of people every year. Shouldn’t that be an acceptable level of threat? Why isn’t the gun lobby a terrorist organization?
Because, of course, owning guns is a “right.”
Sure, if you own a gun, it’s far more likely to end up killing your kid, or your neighbor’s kid than keep you or them safe. But gun owners don’t want to be held responsible for their use, as if it was some God-given right own them.
Of course, except that the Bible says God was pretty explicit about the issue: “Thou shalt not kill.”
So people who kill, or are responsible for killing are godless, right? If a disproportional number of the people killed are black, it’s racist, right? And people responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Americans every year would have to be considered terrorists, right?
So then it follows that the gun-lobby, the NRA, legislators like Bill DeWeese and Steve Barrar are Godless, racist terrorists, right?
Just sayin’
