> Our disagreements were prompted instead by your (angry)
> suggestion that the majority of blacks and hispanics in
> the recent Pew survey who favoured gun control (the
> majority of whites were opposed) ought instead to be
> focusing public attention elsewhere, ie. on the relation
> between poverty and crime.
I know that Reading For Comprehension isn't a big interest on the Internet, but if you go read my posting again, you might find that I was bemoaning the media for not covering that story, not (angrily or otherwise) suggesting anything about anyone else.
> It broadened out from there into a general discussion about
> the possibility and practicality of any form of gun control ...
No, it was specifically about your insistence that "high powered assault rifles" and "automatic weapons" (hint: neither of these "exist") were too easy to come by and that should be the natural target (ahme) of "reform" ... which is just stupid.
> and, more specifically, whether the absence of the gun laws
> commonly found elsewhere uniquely contributed to America's
> extraordinarily high homicide rates.
Yes, I continue to assert -- and you have not yet refuted, even a little -- that the gun laws in the US are mostly unrelated to the homicide rate, because the homicide "rate" (again, a misnomer, but now I'm repeating myself) is concentrated in subsections of the population that are engaged in criminal enterprise that specifically requires the use of violence, and access to firearms isn't a significant factor in those areas.
> Black commentators like Tammerlin Drummond, who writes for the
> Oakland Tribune in your backyard, as other well as other
> minority and liberal journalists and politicians , are using
> the Newtown massacre as a launching pad for a renewed push to
> eliminate the handguns and automatic weapons which are taking
> a higher toll in their communities than in comparable
> high-crime areas elsewhere.
(please stop saying "automatic weapons" until you do a little reading to find out what an "automatic weapon" is and why it is completely unrelated to this conversation)
Commentators, as well as politicians, are always looking for a "high visibility" event to allow their positions to be heard. Afterall, the Newtown incident is why we're talking about it on lbo-talk, yes?
> I view this as a positive development. You evidently don't.
I'm unconcerned with it; I neither see it as positve, nor negative.
> Drummond also doesn't counterpose the violent "gun culture"
> to gun control, as you do; she sees these as linked issues.
That's because the US "gun culture" is largely unrelated to the violent crime found in urban areas of the US.
> Perhaps if you could indicate precisely what it is that you
> find objectionable about her comments below, it will give
> others and myself a better appreciation of your position.
Maybe. But I'm not impressed with how well you've done so far in understanding my position, despite me having boiled it down several times. I take it that's because you have a single vision forward, and mine doesn't line up with yours.
*shrug*
> No one disputes that the campaign for gun control might
> fall short, but why shouldn't the efforts in these communities
> to obtain effective gun control laws be supported as a reform
> worth fighting for?
There's reform worth fighting for, and there's reform suggestions that are ludicrous on the surface because they a) have little chance of accomplishing what they purport to reform; and b) suggest to reform something that is not in need of reform.
But, okay: I'll try to play along for a while.
>> In June, the 7-year-old was shot and killed near her
>> Chicago home -- a victim of gang crossfire.
So first off I'll say that by using an example of a child killed in crossfire, rather than someone actively engaged in the violence that is responsible for the majority of gun crime in the US, seems a bit disingenuous.
Picking one at random, here's one that I might use instead:
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Two-held-in-San-Jose-drug-rip-slaying-4138033.php
>> It has taken the murders of 20 babies and six adults in
>> an upper-middle class neighborhood in Connecticut to achieve
>> what thousands of gun fatalities in urban communities all over
>> this country could not.
Given that what Adam Lanza did is totally unrelated to what happened to Heaven Sutton or John Cody Sonenberg, I guess that's good news for Drummond.
>> Chicago, ground zero in the urban killing epidemic is after
>> all his hometown. There were 35 people shot -- seven of them
>> fatally -- in Chicago during one summer weekend.
Supports my point directly: this is not a smooth distribution function.
>> On Sunday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she would introduce an
>> assault weapons ban bill the first day of the new Congress.
Here's a sugestion for Diane: introduce a bill to legalize pot, because that would remove a huge portion of the black market for drugs that generates much of the violent crime that leads directly to gun crime.
>> There has been more talk of regulating ammunition, extending
>> waiting periods and requiring those who sell firearms at gun
>> shows to conduct background checks.
>>
>> Yet that won't have much effect on the 300 million legally
>> registered guns in this country.
I never know where they get these numbers from, but you'd better believe that if there are 300M guns and something like 8,000 gun homicides that there's little-to-no connection between the two.
Funny, though:
>> In Newtown, the shooter apparently had access to semi-automatic
>> weapons that had been legally purchased by his mother. In fact,
>> many mass shootings have been carried out by people who used
>> legal guns.
>>
>> However, in urban communities, most street shootings are
>> committed by people with illegal guns. The weapons are either
>> stolen from legal gun owners or bought from unlicensed gun
>> dealers and traffickers.
So Drummond sees the difference, but is ... befuddled by it?
/jordan