You still haven't discussed the crux of my argument. Why are citizens and not criminals the focus of restrictions?
Oh, I'm sorry. I missed the crux of your argument in all the loaded language about "liberals" and "gun grabbers."
That said, I doubt the gang members are buying their firearms legally. Because they would be traceable then. The gangs and criminals, who are responsible for most of the murders and violence in the U.S. are getting their guns illegally. You can't cut off their supply by cutting off the supply to the citizenry. They will still get them.
That's the assertion I've seen repeated many times by gun rights advocates, but as RichardGarfinkel's link and this one affirms,
it is not a difficult matter for gangs to buy as many guns as they want legally.
Jonathan Gutierrez said he and other gang members went to gun shows with large amounts of cash and had no problem buying guns despite having a criminal record.
He spoke to NewsChannel 5 from inside a high security prison in West Tennessee where he is serving life in prison for killing a rival gang member.
"I do regret the life I lived," Gutierrez said.
He said he joined a gang when he was nine years old, and by the time he was 13, he tattooed "Brown Pride" around his neck.
A few years later, he was convicted of shooting a rival gang member to death in what he called a war waged on the streets of Nashville.
"Where did you get the weapons that you used?" NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked.
Gutierrez responded,"Most of the weapons that were used were coming from the gun show."
Gutierrez said at age 15, he and other gang members went to local gun shows with cash and were easily able to buy four to six guns each visit.
"Anybody will sell you a gun," Gutierrez said. "I mean no matter what, if you want a gun and you show them the money, and tell them you want to buy it, he's going to definitely sell it to you."
Gutierrez said he bought most guns in the gun show parking lot, after going inside the show and picking out which guns he wanted.
Licensed dealers must run background checks, but private sales at gun shows require no background check.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, "What if you had to go through a background check?"
Gutierrez responded, "I guess we wouldn't be buying none."
However, in the bitter gun control debate, opponents claim expanding background checks will undermine the constitutional right of people to keep and bear arms.
"We will never back away from our resolve to defend our rights and the rights of all law abiding American gun owners," said Wayne LaPierre at the NRA's convention.
"This amendment would start us down that road of registration. It would open, not close loopholes," said Senator Charles Grassley (R) Iowa, on the floor of U.S. Senate during the debate over expanded background checks.
However, supporters of expanded checks argue it should not be so easy for criminals to get guns at gun shows.
The zero-regulation philosophy of the NRA and other advocates that make up the gun lobby, have successfully kept the loophole open that gang-bangers use to wreak havoc in American cities. I don't buy the argument of Sen. Grassley or other alarmists that closing the loophole will invariably lead to gun registration.
Meanwhile, the guns continue to flood into the cities and the emergency rooms, prisons, funeral parlor and cemeteries continue to fill up.
It's not enough to say, "Well, just lock up all the gangs and the problem is solved." The demand is high and the supply is ample and BOTH must be addressed.
From the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence:
- Nine out of 10 Americans agree that we should have universal background checks, including three out of four NRA members.
- Since the Brady Law was initially passed, about 2 million attempts to purchase firearms have been blocked due to a background check. About half of those were felons.13
- Unfortunately, our current background check system only applies to about 60% of gun sales, leaving 40% (online sales, purchases at gun shows, etc.) without a background check.
I would agree with the NRA that new laws and restrictions won't end rampant gang violence in places like Chicago. I disagree with the NRA that new laws and restrictions will not put a serious dent into rampant gang violence.
The unwillingness of the NRA to even entertain a serious discussion on how to keep guns out of the hands of criminals is only enabling criminals to get guns.
Ambrosia said:
Because if the "law-abiding citizens" with their time and money use their legal guns to go after gang bangers, cartel members or political terrorists they then become vigilantes, thus criminals themselves? I know you aren't actually suggesting it, but come on.
I am not encouraging nor do I support vigilantes. After the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, there's
no way I would ever endorse the idea of private citizens taking to the streets looking for criminals to catch in the act.
What I was doing was responding to a nonsensical proposal by another poster with an equally nonsensical one of my own.
Ambrosia said:
I believe this is part of the problem, to be honest, when talking about this issue. You have a population of around 1/2 of the citizens in the U.S. who possess legal guns and are law abiding citizens. These same citizens are feeling attacked by proponents of gun control. 300 million LEGAL guns. Not the guns in the hands of the gang bangers and the criminals. Legal guns. Legal gun owners. People going about their every day lives acting responsibly and not harming anyone. And perhaps a tad scared watching the encroaching violence coming into their neighborhoods caused by gangs and drugs. Knowing the way gangs are spreading to smaller cities now it is enough to cause a person who is not alienated from the concept of holding a gun to go out and buy one of those assault rifles, store ammunition, and take up target practice.
Where exactly do you think the impetus is going to come from to register or confiscate 300 million guns? Not from
this president and certainly not with
this Congress and Supreme Court.
Fear is a powerful force. It can keep us alive, but it has to be tempered by reason. Yes, gangs have moved like a virus from beyond big cities to smaller towns and suburbs, but there isn't an orgy of violence and gunfire occurring every night there.
Arming yourself to the teeth from the threat of impending hordes of criminals may seem like a strategy, but it isn't. It is simply kicking the can down the road for the next generation to eventually deal with.
Ambrosia said:
There is a black market for guns. If right now every last gun legally held in the U.S. was taken and melted down leaving the citizens with no weapons that fire bullets, the gangs would still have guns. No one is addressing this, and trying to take away a means of protecting a family, and sometimes feeding a family, from a law-abiding citizen isn't the answer.
Telling a person who is afraid that you are going to take away their protection, whether that protection is logical or not, is only going to further press that fear button and cause push back. I think that is why these discussions invariably fall apart.
I don't know where you get the idea someone is going to take away your protection. A through system for background check keeps guns out of the hands of people like Aaron Alexis who shouldn't be that mentally unbalanced, yet apparently have no problem buying the weapons he needed to slaughter innocents.
Ambrosia said:
Nighttimer, how would you go about improving the situation for people so they don't feel the need to turn to gangs? Cause I still believe gangs are the problem. And I don't think we begin to understand the mindset of the kids that actually join up.
As I said, Ambrosia, I don't have a magic solution that wipes away this country's gang violence issued. To seriously address the issue you have to apply both punishment
and prevention to curb gangs. That includes harsh penalties for gun-related crimes as well as preventative steps to keep gangs from buying guns.
Focusing on only punishment gets us no further to the day when the threat posed by gangs and organized crime pose is radically reduced.
When she was in a Chicago elementary school, Hadiya Pendleton took part in a video against gang violence. “So many children are out there in gangs,” she said in the 54-second clip. “And it is your job as students to say no to gangs and yes to a great future.”
Last Tuesday in a city park, Hadiya was randomly killed in what police say was a mistaken, gang-related shooting. Just days before, Hadiya had performed with her high school band at President Obama’s inauguration.
Coming only weeks after the shooting of 20 children in Newtown, Conn., this tragic killing of another innocent child has thrown a fresh national spotlight on the fact that an average of 16 kids under the age of 24 are murdered every day in the United States, mostly by guns and many in gang violence. And most are urban blacks or Hispanics.
The problem is particularly acute in Chicago, where gangs are larger and more organized than in most other cities. And despite various innovative anti-gang and anti-gun programs, city officials appear even more frustrated after Hadiya’s death. This January was the city’s most violent January since 2002.
Mr. Obama, too, has been frustrated with national efforts to reduce urban violence. Despite government programs to improve the quality of life, he said last June, “all this matters little if these young people can’t walk the streets of their neighborhood safely; if we can’t send our kids to school without worrying they might get shot.”
Urban leaders, he added, must “push through all the doubt and the cynicism and the weariness.”
This frustration in Chicago and elsewhere comes in part from seeing cities that have been able to demonstrate success in reducing gun and gang violence. But transferring these approaches to different communities isn’t always easy.
The US Justice Department is now working with state and local officials to apply the best ideas. One of the most popular techniques is to identity the small percentage of gang members who are instigators of violence and then change their behavior, either by using peer pressure or offering them positive alternatives to gang life, often with the help of an ex-gang member mentor.
But even that approach can be shortlived if gang-infested communities don’t have one key actor: local clergy.
In the 1990s, Boston pioneered the approach of having black church leaders cooperate with police to patrol streets, work with delinquent youth, and enlist congregations in crime fighting. In weekly meetings with police, for example, clergy can learn about current hot spots in gang tension and then pass on that information in church meetings.
After adding this moral and spiritual component to battling gangs, crime fell 60 percent in Boston in the ’90s.
“Black and Latino churches have been critical to creating peaceful urban communities, speaking better than any other institution in the voice of both righteousness and forgiveness, both of which are critical to the struggle,” says David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a leader on solving urban violence.
More cities are now enlisting faith-based institutions in tackling violence. But each police-clergy coalition will need to find the unique community dynamics needed to make their effort succeed.
As Obama told urban leaders last year, “We have to understand that when a child opens fire on another child, there’s a hole in that child’s heart that government alone can’t fill. It’s up to us, as parents and as neighbors and as teachers and as mentors, to make sure our young people don’t have that void inside them. It’s up to us to spend more time with them, to pay more attention to them, to show them more love so that they learn to love themselves, so that they learn to love one another, so that they grow up knowing what it is to walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes and to view the world through somebody else’s eyes.”
Or as Hadiya said in that video: “Say ... yes to a great future.”
I don't profess to have all of the answers, Ambrosia, but it is important for all of us who want children to grow up in safe communities where they aren't huddled on the floor
in fear of a stray bullet striking them down to ask these questions and be willing to get beyond our differences to find how we go about finding solutions we can agree upon.
If I wanted to I could write about kids like Hadiya Pendelton and Arabian Gayles being slaughtered from now until the day I draw my final breath. I'm
TIRED of reading these stories and I'm
TIRED of writing these stories. I just want them to stop and I'll entertain almost any reasonable, rational idea that ends the blood being spilled.
I don't want to take away a law-abiding citizen's gun. But neither do I want a law-abiding citizen's fear that their gun is going to be taken away provide the cover criminals use to commit mayhem.
