A sad statistic in Chicago this morning: in two days, 38 people shot, 8 dead, with victims ranging in age from 12 to 65. Prime star in this tragedy is one Bennie Teague, denied bond Sunday for the murder of a guy, and opening fire with an AK-47 on CPD.
These kids own guns by the time they are 5, and they are made to align with one gang or another or be killed. There are a host of things that will help, and one of them is to step up efforts to keep guns out of their hands.
The CPD claimed it is like clockwork - the first warming trend, and the gangs come out. A national tragedy.
I'm with you on this. The US should be able to figure out a way to allow gun ownership for hunters, but at the same time limit access to guns where gun violence is at its worst, in the cities and the close in suburbs. In the cities its an open invitation to killing and scary lawlessness.
Thanks, Earl. It really is. My wife was held up years ago by a punk on a bike - about 10, by her description to me. Broad daylight. Sounded like a .25 by her description. I've seen them all over, running rampant; on the "L", literally - I kid you not - spitting on passengers while running through the cars. I engaged them (once it was clear the conductor wouldn't do anything), and the lead kid pulled a weapon. A big scene, as I don't appreciate such incivility and tend to teach under such circumstances. My wife doesn't like me doing this kind of stuff anymore. I've seen kids under 10, 20 yards from our former place near Andersonville, a supposedly "safe" neighborhood, comparing pieces - in plain view. They become adults...I've seen (and stopped) muggings in progress (twice), in the heart of the loop, 5:00 p.m. - in a sea of people. And I have to believe I am a completely random guy who happens to act, rather than not, when crap like this takes place. But then there is the other side of the coin - these kids are born innocent. I've changed over the years, in large part, coming from my working with many of them while they were hired as day labors at the brewery where I then worked (Goose Island). I learned the tragedy of their lives in a way I didn't know earlier - these kids don't have a chance. While I don't condone their violence, and wouldn't shrink from acting, anytime, in the face of it, to ignore them - the kids who must declare allegiance, or die - is to continue what we have now. Disarm them, and work with the underlying causes that make gang life a "life" to begin with. I wholly agree with you. It is insane to me that we cannot find better ways to preserve sportsmen's/sportswomen's rights, while divesting criminals of their weapons.
Let's not confuse issues here. It's not the availability of legal handguns that's causing this. The cause is poverty, lack of opportunity, and short term thinking.
I don't consider handguns in the hands of 7 year old legal. I don't consider handguns in the hands of known murderers or violent criminals legal. Go after them. We have to do something - when is enough enough?
NPT: I'm old enough to have seen the before and after effects of the race riots from the 1960's in one American city. As a kid I was at my father's business every day one summer during the race riots of the 1960's. I was a kid of the lily white suburbs. Conditions were miserable to my eyes. Then the riots occurred and the situation was worse. Now 40 years later the same conditions exist in similar inner city situations around the country, be it Chicago, Detroit, LA, NYC or elsewhere. I think its astonishing that the same conditions exist in these cities, primarily with the same predominately African American population. Meanwhile its not just an American phenomena. The riots in France this year and last where an African/Muslim poorer non-integrated population rioted is a similar situation. Similarly, during the earlier years of the Iraq war, after Saddam was overthrown, some of the evolving violence can be atrributed to a Sunni population of younger men with no jobs, no income, basically nothing....and Al Queda in Iraq turned up offering them some kind of money to fight. No opportunities/be part of an underbelly of the society/be self recognized as different from the mainstream/ have no opportunities/have a subculture that acknowledges or supports the resort to violence/and lastly have tremendous access to weapons....->bingo.....you have a culture of violence. The statistics on all this point to an ugly reality within the US. High percentages of young African American males in prison, up for violent crimes with guns, etc. In some regards, "society" doesn't give a sh!t when folks from these neighborhoods kill one another. That is probably one of the reasons this situation has festered for the 40 years I've seen it....and for a decade or two before then. As the violence spreads within the urban areas to "nicer neighborhoods" "society" takes notice. Its a long term miserable aspect of American society. But it exist in other societies also. I suspect if the folks in France had access to more guns the violence of those riots would have been infinitely worse. I'd have no problem sweeping urban areas of guns. I'd do that with other steps to try and alleviate the root issues that cause young people to start shooting away. But then I'm not the "big Kahuna in charge of everything". In my eyes, its the aspect of America that has made no progress.
This is an important analysis to the problem of violence, which seems o have impregnated in the sub-culture, thanks to poverty, less opportunities, inadequate education, government apathy and Hollywood movies, not to forget easy availability of guns. Does anyone here agree with the concept of forming Organized Militia?
Are you saying, in essence, forming vigilante groups that take the law into their own hands? If so, absolutely not.
Absolutely not. More lawlessness. Feudal type leadership fortified by weapons. Its an impediment to peaceful progress.