Strict gun laws are bad for blacks: ..

[spin]

Strict gun laws are bad for blacks: Why African-Americans should value Second Amendment protections
By Marc Lamont Hill

Wednesday, November 17th 2010, 4:00 AM

As expected, the midterm elections produced huge victories for the GOP and the Tea Party. Still, there was an even bigger winner in the recent drubbing of the Democratic Party: the pro-gun movement. The House of Representatives, which has always had a strong bipartisan pro-gun majority, added nearly 20 pro-gun votes.

As a black progressive, I am tempted to echo the sentiments of most liberals, who regard this pro-gun turn as a full-fledged civic crisis. For most of them, gun ownership is an expendable rather than inalienable right, one worth ceding in exchange for a more peaceful society.

While I understand this position, the price of the ticket, at least for black people, is simply too high.

***snip***

It’s little-known that throughout its history, the United States government has gone to great lengths to disarm black people – from early “slave codes” that prohibited blacks from possessing firearms to exorbitant postwar gun tariffs that priced blacks out of the gun market.

***snip***

Today’s gun control laws may be racially neutral on their face, but they have a clear and disproportionate impact on poor communities of color, which are often left defenseless against predators in their own backyards.

***snip***

But while it would be naive to suggest that guns will solve the problem of urban violence, it would be equally shortsighted to ignore the dangers of further disarming the people who need the most help.
http://bronxnews.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/strict-gun-laws-are-bad-for-blacks-why-african-americans-should-value-second-amendment-protections/

Marc Lamont Hill is an American academic, activist, and television personality. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Education and Anthropology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Hill is also an affiliated faculty member in African American Studies at Columbia University. He is currently the host of the nationally syndicated television show Our World with Black Enterprise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Lamont_Hill

[Creative]

1. Strict gun laws are bad for everyone.

[DeadEyeDyck]

12. He's that guy that goes on all the RW talk shows.

[spin]

16. People who say things like "Strict gun laws are bad for blacks" ...

probably are not popular on liberal talk shows.

That doesn't mean that he is wrong on this subject.

Otis McDonald who was the lead plaintiff in McDonald v Chicago is a 77 year old retired African American who is a life long Democrat.

Now, Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old South Side Democrat who has been threatened with violence by drug dealers for trying to tame his tough neigborhood, will not be the only one without a weapon. This is what he had to say in March, when the case was being argued:

“I just got the feeling that I’m on my own,” said McDonald. “The fact is that so many people my age have worked hard all their life, getting a nice place for themselves to live in … and having one (handgun) would make us feel a lot more comfortable.”

Otis McDonald having a gun will not make Chicago any more dangerous, but it will make Otis McDonald a lot safer, so that he can continue his work to make his neighborhood safer for everyone.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/supreme-court-strikes-chicago-handgun-ban-affirms-individual-gun-rights-na

[SteveM]

19. Ask HuffPo if they will have him post. Fat chance.

[spin]

2. Video: Chicagoan's Attitudes on Guns Changing ...

Saturday, 29 May 2010
The recent murder of a highly respected African-American police officer and Iraq war veteran has Chicago residents up in arms about their personal safety.

View the video at:
http://www.gunnewsdaily.com/index.php/article-archives/408-video-chicagoans-attitudes-on-gun-changing

Note: the video is balanced and presents both sides of the issue.

edited to add note

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[spin]

6. Chicago is a city who seems to want to make firearms and especially ...

handguns rare and hard to get. This also seems to be your approach.


The Chicago gun ban lasted 28 years and was a failure. Handguns are very common in Chicago, just rare in the hands of honest people.

Chicago's pointless handgun ban
City gun ordinances proved to be a failure

March 04, 2010|By Steve Chapman

When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982, it was part of a trend. Washington, D.C., had done it in 1976, and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years. They all expected to reduce the number of guns and thus curtail bloodshed.

District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer told The Washington Post in 2007, "It's a pretty common-sense idea that the more guns there are around, the more gun violence you'll have." Nadine Winters, a member of the Washington City Council in 1976, said she assumed at the time that the policy "would spread to other places."

***snip***

In the years following its ban, Washington did not generate a decline in gun murders. In fact, the number of killings rose by 156 percent — at a time when murders nationally increased by just 32 percent. For a while, the city vied regularly for the title of murder capital of America.

Chicago followed a similar course. In the decade after it outlawed handguns, murders jumped by 41 percent, compared with an 18 percent rise in the entire United States.

One problem is that the bans didn't actually have any discernible effect on the availability of guns to people with felonious intent. As with drugs and hookers, when there is a demand for guns, there will always be a supply.

Who places the highest value on owning a firearm? Criminals. Who is least likely to fear being prosecuted for violating the law? Criminals. Who is most likely to have access to illicit dealers? You guessed it.

If we were starting out in a country with zero guns, it might be possible to keep such weapons away from bad guys. But that's not this country, which has more than 200 million firearms in private hands and a large, perpetual supply of legal handguns.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-03-04/news/ct-oped-0304-chapman-20100304-column_1_legal-handguns-gun-violence-ban

[sharesunited]

7. Chicago gets flooded with guns from Indiana and downstate Illinois.

It's the same problem D.C. had with Virginia.

The scarcity solution needs to be a seamless one from sea to shining sea.

[spin]

8. So future gun control should focus on stopping the trafficking in illegal firearms ...

and taking illegal weapons out of the hands of criminals.

Current the ATF has a goal of inspecting FFLs once every 3 years but their average is once ever 10 years. Some states require or allow state inspection of FFLs. Inspecting the FFls more frequently should stop part of the problem.

Of course the next step is to focus on straw purchasers. Buying a handgun with the intent of delivering it to the back market should be a crime that receives extremely severe punishments. The punishment for deliberately obtaining or selling firearms to criminals should be severe enough to offset the profit motive. If nothing else, this would cause the cost of an illegal firearm to jump to a level that many low level criminals could not afford.

I also feel that if you are involved in delivering a firearm to a criminal, either as a straw purchaser, a smuggler or a street dealer, you should be considered an accessory to any crime he commits. If he murders someone, you would be an accessory to murder!

Of course, if a person with a violent criminal record is caught carrying a firearm illegally, the punishment should also be severe. In some cities carrying an illegal weapon is treated as a serious crime and the criminal doesn't get a mere slap on the wrist. In those cities the criminal often leaves the weapon at home rather than carry it everywhere. If he becomes angry at someone who "disrespects" him, he doesn't have a firearm with him to shoot either the individual or some innocent bystander.

[one-eyed fat man]

10. Re-read the relevant point in the article.

"Who places the highest value on owning a firearm? Criminals. Who is least likely to fear being prosecuted for violating the law? Criminals. Who is most likely to have access to illicit dealers? You guessed it.

You never get the point. You absolutely, positively refuse to acknowledge that the same undocumented pharmacists who sell you your nickel bag of weed so you can unwind after a long day can just as easily supply you with a gun.

There is a ban on most of your recreational drugs from sea to shining sea. and they are not even remotely scarce. You blame Chicago's drug problems on Indiana and downstate too? Odds are, unless you are dumber than post, you could score cocaine in your office building during lunch.

Bans did not make booze, dope, gambling, prostitution disappear, but you believe with all your heart that if guns were banned, that would turn out different.

[TheWraith]

17. Because that worked so well in Mexico.

Where the people can barely buy a .22 rifle, while the cartels have grenade launchers and anti-tank rockets.

[one-eyed fat man]

9. Doubtless,

you prefer "they" stay on the plantation.

[bluestateguy]

4. Gun control is racist and elitist

Very well written.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. It is also classist...the poor have a hard time being allowed to buy firearms

[Tuesday Afternoon]

11. being allowed ...?

what does that mean. I am poor and have purchased firearms.

can you expand on your statement, please.

[X_Digger]

13. I think PP's point is best demonstrated in Chicago..

.. try being poor and legally acquiring a handgun there.

"Inspections", multiple trips to the PD, time off work, classes, finding a range (none allowed in the city)..

[Tuesday Afternoon]

14. ok, thanks.

no ranges in Chicago's city limits...ugh.

[X_Digger]

15. Another good example is DC..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103836.html

It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.

[spin]

18. Well the powers in Chicago may have to allow people to own handguns ...

but they don't want to make it easy for them to practice.

That way when they miss their target while using the handgun for legitimate self defense, the city brass can say that guns don't work. If they hit an innocent bystander, the city will be sure to point that out too.

The Brady Campaign and the VPC will publish articles telling people that handguns are useless against experienced criminals based on the Chicago experience. The Main Street Media will bow and scrape to the "logic" of these two anti-RKBA organizations and will publish lengthy articles filled with falsehoods and deceit.