Hawk turns his ire towards the Mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums who doesn't seem to be able to solve the problem. Maybe it's possible that he doesn't really want to do anything about the problem. Either way apparently it's there.
When Ms. Davis was dying in Oakland, Dellums instead was in San Francisco meeting Desmond Tutu. Hawk mentions that Dellums is campaigning for Hillarious Clinton, OK Hillary Clinton. He asks if we want Dellums, a do-nothing Mayor, to advise Sen. Clinton on urban issues?
Hawk's solution is simple he wants to send people with illegal guns to prison for a long period of time. I could always ask, what's an illegal gun? Is it a gun used in the commission of a crime or perhaps a gun bought on the black market?
I wish I knew, but the fact is whoever fired this shot had a gun and whether they know this or not they committed murder. I'm glad Hawk responded to this comment I thought it was asinine.
Higher penalties don't change crime rates. At some point, higher penalties are even counter-productive. The USA have a problem with guns. No other civilized country is so heavily armed like the US population. You know what? Guns are the reason for the many homicide cases the USA has to suffer from. The USA has a 40 times higher murder rate than some countries of Europe.Hawk's response...
Get rid of your weapons and you get rid of the extremely high murder rate. (People will start to beat each other up instead of just killing.)
My own belief is that the vast majority of crimes with guns are committed with illegal guns, not legal guns. Start locking these people up and the murder rate will go down.I've edited these heavily, but I hope you get the gist.
The violence in American cities are a symptom of a bigger problem and banning guns won't solve it. Taking guns away from responsible people won't solve the problem. I know you've seen this line from me many times on this blog, but thinking a society without guns isn't a realistic answer to violence. Yeah people will get beat up and unfortunately people can die from a good beating. They could also be stabbed.
Boy, if there were a rash of stabbings the call instead could probably be to ban knives. And some won't make the distinctions between kitchen knives or perhaps a pocket knife that was actually used in a crime. This is an extreme example surely, but knowing how people simply think removing one element of a problem is a solution when it's not. It requires rolling up some sleeves to solve a problem.
Let me also state, that all too often we hear a very simplified solution. When someone gets killed, "we need more gun control!" They always say this and either there's no will to move on this issue or if they do move on this issue we still hear about another shooting. What I would take from this is that we need a new solution and it's not gun control.
2 comments:
i've got a few thoughts on the issue -- hopefulli can make them coherent.
First, let's not forget about the "well regulated Militia" part of the second amendment...pro-gun people seem to NEVER mention that.
Second, can youget some statistics on "positive" and "negative" uses of guns-- but measure it between 2 groups: "militia" and "non militia".
The positive would be guns being used to "help". For example, police shooting a hostile suspect, or a resident shooting a burglar.
Negative would not just be murders, but also accidental shootings.
Militia would not just be military (including resevres), but also all forms of police (such as state, county & city), as well as security firms, who have extensive rules on their use of weapons.
Non-militia is not just the average citizen, but also groups that are NOT "well regulated" (i.e. subject to government laws, and have acocuntibility), such as hunting clubs or gangs (not comparing the two as equal...just fitting that BROAD definition).
So the stats we need to look at are these:
Positive Use of weapons by Militias (domestically -- where we can say a life was pontentially saved ; hunting & target practice don't count)
Positive use by non-militias (those residents not part of a "militia" where they report their use. Most likely, we would learn of this postive use by police report, as a private gun owner would still report to police the burglary)
Negative use by militia (like the cops who shot the New York groom-to-be 50 times the day before his wedding), but also including any accidents, such as children in their home that accidentaly used the gun to hurt someone
Negative use by non-militia (who would probably have less training/reminders of safe gun use)
Let's see who wins.
My gut -- which i wouldn't mind be proven wrong by hard facts -- says that 95-99% of "positive" gun use is by well regulated militias.
The negative use would probably be 50-50.
Oh -- forgot to mention....there's also a difference in rural & urban settings.
Having a gun on a farm is far safer than a gun in the city...Lake Point Towers, for example, would be very dangerous to shoot a gun....gas pipes everywhere and many nighbors who aren't expecting anything.
And imagine if there everyone were armed...if a neighbor shot their gun, & accidentally shot my child...in my grief (and rage and fear, all at once)...what would stop me from going over and blowing their brains out -- "justified" in that if my innocent child was just shot, i need to kill the shooter before any more of my family or neighbors get hurt.
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