mauserme Posted November 27, 2015 at 12:19 AM Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 12:19 AM Interesting observations republished by Salon(dot)com: http://www.salon.com/2015/11/26/black_lives_dont_matter_in_the_gun_debate_americas_crisis_is_much_bigger_than_mass_murder/ THURSDAY, NOV 26, 2015 12:00 PM CST Black lives don't matter in the gun debate: Americas crisis is much bigger than mass murder Until we accept that U.S. gun violence is largely a story of race and geography, our policies are doomed to fail LOIS BECKETT, PROPUBLICA This originally appeared on ProPublica. They had been invited by the Obama administration to talk about what the country should do to address gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden had been meeting with victims and advocates all day, and he arrived so late that some in the room wondered whether he would come at all. When he finally walked in, the clergy started sharing their advice, full of pain, some of it personal. The incidents of Newtown are very tragic, Michael McBride, a 37-year-old pastor from Berkeley, California, recalled telling Biden. But any meaningful conversation about addressing gun violence has to include urban gun violence. ...the vice president agreed urban violence was very important, McBride said. But it was clear that there was not a lot of appetite for that conversation by folks in the meeting, McBride recalled. Later, other ministers who worked with McBride would get an even blunter assessment from a White House staffer: There was no political will in the country to address inner-city violence. ... Mass shootings, unsurprisingly, drive the national debate on gun violence. But as horrific as these massacres are, by most counts they represent less than 1 percent of all gun homicides. Americas high rate of gun murders isn't caused by events like Sandy Hook or the shootings this fall at a community college in Oregon. Its fueled by a relentless drumbeat of deaths of black men. ... Avoiding that fact has consequences. Twenty years of government-funded research has shown there are several promising strategies to prevent murders of black men, including Ceasefire. They don't require passing new gun laws, or an epic fight with the National Rifle Association. What they need - and often struggle to get is political support and a bit of money. A week after McBride and the other faith leaders met with Biden, Obama announced his national gun violence agenda. He called for universal background checks.... Other key elements of his plan - a ban on assault weapons and funding to put police officers in schools were unlikely to save a significant number of lives. At the press conference where Obama announced the plan, a diverse group of four children sat on the podium with him: two girls and two boys who had written letters begging the president to do something about gun violence. Hinna, a third - grader you can go ahead and wave, Hinna that's you Hinna wrote, I feel terrible for the parents who lost their children. I love my country, and I want everybody to be happy and safe, the president said. Obama went over the litany of school shootings - Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown - and made a brief nod to the deaths of kids on street corners in Chicago. But his plan included no money for the urban violence strategies his Justice Department described as effective. His platform didn't refer to them at all. McBride, who was in the audience, said he was not surprised. He supported the presidents other proposals, and, when it came to urban violence, he had realistic expectations. In his fight to save the lives of black men, McBride has kept running up against the same assumption: that urban violence is a problem with black folk. Its not a problem for this country to solve. ... The national groups that spend the most money and do the most advocacy related to gun violence have concentrated almost exclusively on passing stricter gun control laws. Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said hes very supportive of strategies like Ceasefire, but its not our lane. A spokeswoman for Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety said much the same. We're focused on what we know, which is how to improve the laws, said Erika Soto Lamb. ... The few congressional efforts to advance gun legislation in recent years have been prompted by mass shootings, violence that is seemingly random and thus where everyone can feel at risk. Congress has only moved in response to galvanizing tragedy, and galvanizing tragedy tends to not involve urban, run-of-the-mill murder, said Matt Bennett, a gun policy expert at Third Way, a centrist think - tank. The narrative about the need for gun violence prevention generally is driven by these black swan events, and those often involve white people, he added. It is horrific and tragic, but that's the fact. ... Two weeks after Obama unveiled his plan, McBride and dozens of other clergy members, many of them from cities struggling with high rates of gun violence, met again with staffers from Vice President Biden's task force. The mood at the January 29 meeting was tense. Many of the attendees, including McBride, felt the presidents agenda had left out black Americans. ... Gross said he blew a gasket. The clergy members in the room were pleading for help. We bury hundreds of kids every year in the inner city, Gross recalled them telling the administration representative. Some of the solutions need to apply to us. A staffer said that the political will of the country was not focused on urban violence, several ministers who attended the meeting recalled. What was said to us by the White House was, there's really no support nationally to address the issue of urban violence, said Reverend Charles Harrison, a pastor from Indianapolis. The support was to address the issue of gun violence that affected suburban areas schools where white kids were killed. The Reverend Jeff Brown, from Boston, was angered by the administrations calculated approach. When you say something like that and you represent the president of the United States, and the first African-American president of the United States, you know, that's hugely disappointing, he said. ... When Jeff Brown was at the White House recently for an initiative on extremism, he ran into Biden. The vice president walked up to me and said, Reverend Brown, good to see you, Brown said. Biden said he remembered meeting Brown back in the 90's, when he visited Boston to hear more about Operation Ceasefire and the Boston Miracle. I hope we can bring back some of what we did in Boston, Brown said he told the vice president. I hope so, too, Biden replied. Brown laughed at the memory. You're the vice president - can't you do something about it? And the excerpt that describes the most duplicitous aspects of the charade: ... When Adam Lanza shot his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School with a military-style rifle and handguns in December 2012, it wasn't clear if any laws would have stopped him. Lanza had taken the guns from his mother, who had purchased them legally. ... Obama and gun control advocates made universal background checks the focus of their push. It wasn't a policy that was relevant to Newtown, but they saw it as the most likely way to reduce everyday gun violence and save lives. Most researchers agree that a better background check system could help curtail both urban gun violence and mass shootings, though there's no hard data to indicate how much. There was less evidence proving that the other elements of the presidents plan would reduce gun violence. Though the public quickly focused on one weapon Lanza used, a Bushmaster XM15-E2S, experts knew the assault weapons ban hadn't saved many lives. The effects of a renewed ban are likely be small at best, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement, a report funded by the Justice Department concluded. A former senior White House official agreed. While a ban on high capacity magazines could help some, the official told ProPublica, the assault weapons ban does nothing. Though Obama endorsed it as part of the post-Newtown package, we did the bare minimum, the official said. We would have pushed a lot harder if we had believed in it. Some gun control advocates who worked with the administration on gun legislation said they saw the endorsement of the assault weapons ban as a bargaining chip. Its all a dance, its a kabuki thing, and right from the beginning the White House understood that they weren't going to get a ban done, said Bennett, the gun policy expert. They had to talk about it. It would have been insane not to. Every news report after Sandy Hook had this horrible looking AR-15, and noted that it had been a banned weapon that now wasn't. ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
POAT54 Posted November 27, 2015 at 12:29 AM Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 12:29 AM Thank you for sharing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mic6010 Posted November 27, 2015 at 01:53 AM Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 01:53 AM Yep, nobody cares and thats 100% true. And thats because we can't do a thing about it, nor are we wanted or welcome in those places to even try.All we can do is swam police officer after police officer into those areas to the point they cry about harassment, brutality and everything else. Clearly the ONLY solution to the problem of inner city violence has to come from within those community's.Until they start hanging gang bangers from the street lights there will never be peace in those neighborhoods.They all know who the bangers are too, but they just won't do anything about it or even talk to the police.They are spineless.cowards afraid of teen age thugs and or just don't care. But if a white guy shoots a black guy then they got scruples they never knew they had.Then its the biggest outrage ever. Nah not our problem, not worth giving up even a smidgen of my rights, liberty's or tax dollars for. You can't buy, enforce or give people morality and teach them right or wrong. That's just how they are. Nobody can help that. Unless you got a time machine you can go back and sink the slave ships before they ever left Africa. Since they got here though, nothing you can do forever more. Or at least thats how they tell it..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauserme Posted November 27, 2015 at 02:19 AM Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 02:19 AM I think the article speaks more to the futility of trusting those who see this as a political issue to find real solutions, not the futility of finding solutions that move beyond the politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awan Posted November 27, 2015 at 03:07 AM Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 03:07 AM It is interesting ProPublica is funded by George Soros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hipshot Percussion Posted November 27, 2015 at 05:36 AM Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 05:36 AM Terrific article. Of course there's no support. How can their be support for a strategy that isn't allowed to see the light of day? Once again this shows the President isn't really worried about violence, but only those acts of violence that can be played to an emotionally beaten drum... gun control... gun control... gun control. Admitting their is a real problem elsewhere isn't going to get him is gun control... gun control... gun control... Makes me want to puke... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C0untZer0 Posted November 27, 2015 at 02:14 PM Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 02:14 PM The author uses the phrase "Black Lives Matter" but the article doesn't really contain any information concerning the movement Black Lives Matter. I haven't been able to find quotes, but members of the Back Lives Matter movement have been asked about the seeming disparity between their rage over 1 black man killed by a white police officer in Ferguson Missouri and their seeming indifference to the dozens of blacks killed by other blacks every day in America's largest cities. Their response has been to delimit their mission - saying that they're concerned with police oppression and brutality against African Americans (they don't limit their scope or mission in other circumstances), and to accuse anyone who brings this question up of being a racist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauserme Posted November 27, 2015 at 02:34 PM Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 at 02:34 PM The article is about black lives, not Black Lives. The term was used as a literary device in the title. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinmcc Posted November 29, 2015 at 09:44 PM Share Posted November 29, 2015 at 09:44 PM #BlackLivesMatter does not matter...They have hijacked police brutality and corruption to make a racial agenda.Rather than making everything a race issue, just the others already fighting for everyone.I refuse to help anyone that makes something a nonexistent race issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hap Posted November 29, 2015 at 10:14 PM Share Posted November 29, 2015 at 10:14 PM From the point of view of most advocates of further restrictions on firearms ownership, the worst thing that could happen would be a reduction in deaths due to criminal use of firearms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauserme Posted November 29, 2015 at 11:08 PM Author Share Posted November 29, 2015 at 11:08 PM #BlackLivesMatter does not matter... They have hijacked police brutality and corruption to make a racial agenda. Rather than making everything a race issue, just the others already fighting for everyone. I refuse to help anyone that makes something a nonexistent race issue. But isn't it interesting that people are waking up to the fact that they've been used? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talonap Posted November 29, 2015 at 11:20 PM Share Posted November 29, 2015 at 11:20 PM #BlackLivesMatter does not matter... They have hijacked police brutality and corruption to make a racial agenda. Rather than making everything a race issue, just the others already fighting for everyone. I refuse to help anyone that makes something a nonexistent race issue. But isn't it interesting that people are waking up to the fact that they've been used? Unfortunately, not enough people realize that fact ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauserme Posted November 29, 2015 at 11:52 PM Author Share Posted November 29, 2015 at 11:52 PM As I was told once by a wise woman, sometimes all you need is a crack in the door to let a little light through. I think the door just cracked open a little... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DD123 Posted November 30, 2015 at 01:30 AM Share Posted November 30, 2015 at 01:30 AM I have seen some semblance of rational thought from the left regarding more gun laws. Now don't get me wrong, it's a very small minority of leftist I've seen that have started to come around to face reality. They have to all come to the realization that these homicides involving firearms overwhelmingly consist of gang activities. If we were to strip gang shootings/murders out of the numbers, what would the totals look like? I'm guessing that they would put us right in line with "other advanced nations". I believe a good way to overcome the gang problem is to nab every person with gang affiliations, and make them serve in the military. Most of these kids grew up without father's, or in a stable household. The military would instill some discipline and morals into these kids. I have a couple friends that were degenerates as teens and they were forced to join the military. After they put in their 4 years, they came back like different people....respectful, ambitious, and a positive attitude where they felt that they could surmount any challenge. That might just be the thing needed. We have to be honest about incarceration in that when people get out, they often times come out worse than when they went in. A great way to show people the light, is to sit down with them and show them quantifiable data, like the FBI statistics. Most of these people on the left are lazy and don't do their own research to validate the information they've been given. Believe it or not, I vet all information that comes from the NRA. Even though I'm a paying member, and I do trust the organization, I still have to do my own research because not doing so would be doing myself a disservice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauserme Posted November 30, 2015 at 01:38 AM Author Share Posted November 30, 2015 at 01:38 AM ... They have to all come to the realization that these homicides involving firearms overwhelmingly consist of gang activities. If we were to strip gang shootings/murders out of the numbers, what would the totals look like? I'm guessing that they would put us right in line with "other advanced nations". ... Suicides too. Depending on whose numbers you use, between 60% and 70% of the gun related homicides they cite are self inflicted. Then they argue against mental health solutions as one piece of the puzzle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DD123 Posted November 30, 2015 at 01:40 AM Share Posted November 30, 2015 at 01:40 AM ...They have to all come to the realization that these homicides involving firearms overwhelmingly consist of gang activities. If we were to strip gang shootings/murders out of the numbers, what would the totals look like? I'm guessing that they would put us right in line with "other advanced nations". ...Suicides too. Depending on whose numbers you use, between 60% and 70% of the gun related homicides they cite are self inflicted. Then they argue against mental health solutions as one piece of the puzzle. Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I always forget to include suicides and they're a very important statistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neumann Posted December 1, 2015 at 02:55 AM Share Posted December 1, 2015 at 02:55 AM While the nation was immersed in the Planned Parenthood shootings in Colorado Springs, 11 shot and 3 killed, Chicago suffered 85 shot and 15 killed. What did we hear about Chicago? "Black Lives Matter" and "The Miracle Mile Shut Down". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blade13 Posted December 1, 2015 at 03:35 AM Share Posted December 1, 2015 at 03:35 AM While the nation was immersed in the Planned Parenthood shootings in Colorado Springs, 11 shot and 3 killed, Chicago suffered 85 shot and 15 killed. What did we hear about Chicago? "Black Lives Matter" and "The Miracle Mile Shut Down".Because the truth is that black lives or any lives for that matter, don't matter to these radicals pushing the protests unless they fit their agenda. If black lives did matter to them they would have daily protests within their own communities where most black deaths occur at the hands of other blacks.from http://heyjackass.com/2015-race-of-victim/ Assailants: 69.7% Black ; Victim 80% Black Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C0untZer0 Posted December 1, 2015 at 05:11 AM Share Posted December 1, 2015 at 05:11 AM You can't use the three words: black, lives, and matter without it being evocative of the Black Lives Matter movement. They're called Race Hucksters for a reason. There was fame and some fortune to be made off of Tawana Brawley, Crystal Mangum, Michael Brown and others. There is no money to be made when an African American gang member with a 10-page rap sheet kills another African American gang member with an 11-page rap sheet. Exactly who will they extort for money? In what way does that stir indignation or pluck the heart strings of rich leftists so as to make them open their check book and hand gobs of money over to Jackson or Sharpton? It doesn't so that's why Jackson, Sharpton and the others don't march around protesting about it, and that is why they're hucksters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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