Blake Masters Blames Gun Violence on 'Black People, Frankly' (Arizona's GOP Senate candidate)

[Nevilledog]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/blake-masters-blames-gun-violence-on-black-people-frankly?source=articles&via=rss

No paywall
https://archive.ph/shpWz

Tech investor and Arizona Republican Senate hopeful Blake Masters acknowledges that the United States has a gun violence problem. But he also has a theory about why there’s a problem—it’s “Black people, frankly.”

Masters boiled the issue down in an April 11 interview on the Jeff Oravits Show podcast, telling the host that “we do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence.”

“It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly,” Masters clarified. “And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.”

It’s unclear why Masters—who has pushed the baseless “great replacement” conspiracy theory narrative—felt compelled to single out Black people. Moments earlier in the interview, during a discussion about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Masters told Oravits that “most Americans just, you know, just want to stop obsessing about race all the time,” adding that “the left’s biggest tool in their toolkit is just to divide people on the basis of race, and that’s really messed up.”

Republicans frequently cite urban gang violence, most often in Chicago, in attempts to tap out of the gun control debate. While their redirections are often as misleading as they are cliche, those officials aren’t always as forthright as Masters about the racial undertones.

*snip*

[Skittles]

1. why is it that gang members are a separate category of gun humpers

THEY ARE GUN HUMPERS

[PTWB]

6. There is certainly value...

In separating gun owners who commit crimes with their guns from gun owners who do not commit crimes with their guns.

That said, there are certainly gun owners who commit crimes with their guns and are not members of a gang.

[Solly Mack]

2. ...

“most Americans just, you know, just want to stop obsessing about race all the time,”

Translation: White Americans, like me, just want to be racist without all the backlash from other people.

[Nevilledog]

8. Correct

[Skittles]

9. they consider us pointing out racism as obssessing

whereas their actual racism is just, well, natural

[Solly Mack]

10. Exactly.

We are the ones with the problem, not them.

[New Breed Leader]

13. THIS.

[Walleye]

3. So they are proud of their racism, but at the same time ashamed of it

Republicans got some fucked up people running for office

[Mister Ed]

4. Like those Black people there in Buffalo.

If they hadn't been there in their grocery store being all Black and stuff, then there wouldn't have been any shooting.

Deep, bitter, rageful

I'm not a hateful person, but with this, I am beginning to hate.

[intheflow]

14. If only those folks in Charleston hadn't been all Black at church.

If only Ahmaud Arbery hadn't been all Black while jogging. If only those Black people weren't protesting for Black Lives Matter, Rittenhouse wouldn't have had to shoot them. And so on, as Vonnegut would say.

[secularhumanizer]

5. Given permission

Trump has given permission to all the bigots to get their hate on unashamedly.

[CurtEastPoint]

7. what a fucking douchebag

[NickB79]

17. Cradling it like it's his newborn child

That's.... interesting

[Kid Berwyn]

11. " aren't always as forthright...about the racial undertones."

Article makes Dixie NAZI gangster sound so normal.

[canetoad]

12. "Frankly"

Is a sure sign of obfuscation, bullshit, perfidy and lies.

[not fooled]

15. Oh, lordy

Peter "Don't Say I'm Gay" Thiel's sock puppet. AZ will further humiliate itself--after Cyber Ninjas, Joe Arpaio, current GQPee nom for gov Kari Lake, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum--if this Nazi gets elected.

[Celerity]

16. K & R for visibility

[lees1975]

18. Does he not know the difference between gang violence on the street

and a shooting in a school classroom that kills kids who thought they were safe?

Chicago has had far fewer school-aged kids die in their classroom than Uvalde, Texas or Santa Fe, Texas has. I think the ration is something like 2 to 35 in terms of school shootings, and Texas has far more who have died while worshipping in church.

And when was the last time this jack ass came to Chicago to find out what is being done to combat the flow of illegal weapons from states where there are no restrictions on purchase, like Indiana, which is literally just separated from Chicago by a line on the ground.

[maxsolomon]

19. We have multiple gun violence problems in this country.

The worst is suicides, by far. 50% of annual gun deaths.
Rampage Shootings like Buffalo and Uvalde. I'll fold Familicides, where the shooter kills wife/children/parents as part of a suicide, in there. Fueled by resentment and despair.
Negligent homicide, like leaving your gun where a toddler can get it.
"Gang" violence, which is a euphemism for minority shootings, has changed recently into indiscriminate spraying of crowds with bullets.

Democrats actually want to do something about all of it.

[niyad]

20. Thoroughly disgusted KNR.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

21. NOPE Even if that were true the fact is most illegal guns originate from

the legal gun trade, and get diverted or stolen or.... any one of a number of things. So the blame for criminal gun use of any type really has to be placed on the impotent white guy gun hoarders who are creating this huge glut of easily available guns in this country.

[Samrob]

22. THIS!!!

But who is present to stand up point out these facts? We need an army of rapid responders to attend GOP town halls and push for equal time on the airways. Get on FOX and spout the truth. Why give FOX a free pass to mostly go unchallenged with their lies. Not enough of us call into those talk show and counter the lies being spewed.