02/02/13

OK, here’s today’s challenge, put forth by a good friend who is earnestly seeking an answer.

This all begins with a blog he presented: http://www.shakesville.com/2013/01/shirley-chambers-and-her-family.html   which talks about a TV news story from Chicago, my home town. I suggest you read the blog before reading this.

Chicago has a problem with violence and murder. Chicago has had this problem for some considerable time. Chicago has the highest murder numbers of any major city in this nation. They were host to over 500 murders last year. Which we call progress, because back in the early 90’s they were dropping 900 during the crack wars. Makes the 130 or so we endure in my neighboring war zone, Oakland, seem paltry by comparison. Appalling numbers by anyone’s definition. The bulk of these murders occur during gang warfare, drug enterprises, and related criminal activities.

Chicago reacted to this violence years ago by enacting by far the most stringent gun control in the nation, making it nearly impossible to legally possess a handgun. Not only is it illegal to own handguns except by jumping through incredibly restrictive hoops, but it is even more illegal to actually use a firearm, not only to commit a crime, but also to defend oneself against a crime. Chicago has done everything it could imagine to legislate an end to murder. They just haven’t had any success.

The blog tells of a woman who has seen four of her children killed on those mean streets of Chicago since 1995. Imagine the horror….four of your babies snatched away forever, innocents killed by murderers on the streets. Terrible. Heart breaking. Certainly sounds heartbreaking, as described in the blog. The last baby child, Ronnie, was only 34 when he was killed the other day. Four more people died on the streets that day, in un-related murders.

Not surprisingly, the author of the blog, a British journalist, thinks something should be done about “gun violence” in Chicago.

Today’s question becomes today’s challenge due to the restrictions demanded by the blog’s author, limiting what we can and cannot consider when discussing this mess.

For instance, we cannot blame the victims. We are seeking an end to “gun violence”, but we cannot consider any behaviors of the victims which may have contributed to their deaths.

The story implies that all four of these children were just hanging out and then they died in the usual hail of bullets that typifies the early evening in Chicago. And maybe this is true. The details of their dying weren’t forthcoming in the blog. Their mom has stated that they were all victims of circumstance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of the four, three apparently didn’t have criminal records. Ronnie’s wrong place was sitting in a parked car on the street in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods, and his wrong time was 2 AM.

Statistics are simply numbers, and so they may not apply here. The statistics tell us that something like 90% of the folks who murder in Chicago already have violent criminal records. And something like 60% of the folks murdered also have violent criminal records. Which of course means that a few of the people who kill don’t yet have a criminal record, and nearly half of the folks murdered don’t have a violent criminal record, so maybe this woman’s children really weren’t criminals caught up in the violence that accompanies criminal behavior. Maybe they were just out enjoying the evening weather when they were murdered. That would truly make this family tragedy worse than if the other applied.

Ronnie’s arrest record runs to 100 pages, and he had four felony convictions, but they say he was reformed from his days as a gang member. So we can give him that. And I’m sure it was pleasant out in Chicago at 2 AM in January.

And maybe they weren’t just good kids who made the innocent mistake of hanging around with, oh I don’t know, bad folks like gang members or drug dealers, ya know, when they were gunned down as collateral victims. Maybe they were out selling Girl Scout cookies or recruiting for their church. None of this information was part of the blog.

When he was murdered, Ronnie was promoting a Rap performer who calls himself, YK, for Yung Killa. No doubt a nice fellow just trying to cash in on the whole gang banger killer ain’t that a cool lifestyle kinda guy.

So, let’s assume these were good kids, who just happened to be out on the streets instead of home studying or working or singing in the choir. Well then it’s a darn shame they got killed, and I’m grieved by the carnage. So I guess I won’t be blaming the victims here.

According to the blog, we also cannot introduce mental illness into this discussion. So don’t blame any truly crazy people for the insane level of daily violence on those streets.

And we cannot offer anything discriminatory against poor urban black people. So forget all about acknowledging who is killing whom every single night deep in the heart of Chicago.

Don’t talk about the degradation of a great society where once such nastiness was not tolerated. That doesn’t matter here.

And we better have some empathy for the killers. Not their fault, how they turned out. They’ve had tough lives. Don’t lump them all into some bag labeled monsters.

Last but not least, we must confine this discussion to one more limitation… the statement in the blog that this evil all happens as a byproduct of some virtually unlimited right to own a gun. And lord knows we cannot use the presence of unrepentant random murderers as an excuse to arm ourselves in defense. Presumably, that means we can finally stop looking because the cause of all this violence is our Bill of Rights.

My friend, who presented this blog for our digestion, is asking for a reasoned discussion, presumably with the same limitations as the blog, to seek a solution to “gun violence”. He also has his limitations for the discussion. We must not clump all criminals together to condemn them, for they have so many reasons why they became multi-generational conscienceless killers. And don’t bring up “Assault Weapons” for he doesn’t wish to have this argument degenerate into a condemnation of a disinformation campaign instigated by politicians and media.

Anyway, the story about these four dead kids has some people stirred up. Victims all, these kids are just the latest example of the failure of our country to deal with “gun violence”.

Now, the premise, if not evident, of today’s challenge is to come up with a solution to “gun violence” without addressing any or all of the above. And so I shall offer up my take of what’s left.

The asking of the question essentially determines the answer, for the question doesn’t ask how to reduce violence. It’s only about “gun violence”. The asking of the question presupposes that the problem lies only with the guns. Maybe that is why the media always use the term “gun violence” to shift the blame off of the perpetrators of the violence, and transfer it to the tool these murderers used. And of course, any other conceivable discussion has already been excluded from this challenge by the blog rules.

There was a comment section following the blog, and lots of folks chimed in with comments, as is appropriate. Most would consider further gun control legislation, for that which already exists clearly didn’t help things much. The blog did suggest constructing higher barriers to handgun ownership, so I guess nearly impossible isn’t stringent enough.

And many volunteered that any notion that a constitutional right exists, or that firearms can be used as a positive to deter crime, was just a myth. And no, the notion that some people find use and pleasure with their firearms was simply obscene in the face of this carnage. Heck, honest citizens aren’t allowed bazookas, one suggested, and they do just fine. And the criminals thus do not have bazookas.

Which is true to the best of my knowledge. But I do recall the news blurb that appeared in my California newspaper several years ago. It involved the very grade school I once attended, good ole Vanderpool, on Chicago’s South Side. Seems somebody found several rocket powered grenades and a launcher hiding near the school dumpster. Maybe those bad folks didn’t actually have a bazooka, but they did have an RPG.

So, whatever shall we do to stop “gun violence”? It is against the rules of this challenge to do this next part, but I must. We need to know what doesn’t work if we are to look into what might. Even if it seems a bit nihilistic. So…what hasn’t worked?

Thou shall not kill has not helped. Supposedly God’s law, if you believe in God. If not, well never mind. We also have several man made laws prohibiting murder, manslaughter, homicide, as well as rape, robbery, drug dealing, drug possession, prostitution, truancy, car theft, and vagrancy. And since this is about “gun violence” we should consider all those many thousands of laws concerning the possession, acquisition, and misuse of firearms that were pretty much all written to keep firearms away from that subset of the population who either cannot, or will not, stop killing each other.

And apparently, if I read the blog correctly, we shall not even be allowed to consider whether this is a cannot or a will not question.

None of these laws stop the carnage.

The 13 year old kid who murdered one of this woman’s children broke several laws that night. Not the least of which was that it would be illegal for him to possess a handgun for the next 8 years of his life. Oh, and in Chicago he couldn’t possess that gun without the permit that takes major bribes or groveling in front of officials, 6 months of waiting, and a background check to acquire. Those felons who killed the woman’s other kids weren’t allowed to own firearms, either. And those folks who illegally obtained the firearms that they supplied to the felons who shouldn’t have had them in the first place broke countless other laws in the process.     

Still, that woman’s kids are dead, along with 500 others each year.

What use are laws to people who do not obey them? Clearly, despite the toughest gun control in the nation, criminals managed to acquire and use guns to kill those four kids. Those guns came from somewhere. And thus we arrive at the inevitable conclusion, given the rules of this challenge. We must dry up the source of guns that these criminals use.

We have to deny the criminals the guns with which they kill, and all those laws haven’t worked, for the criminals simply acquire and misuse guns outside the law. Which means that, given the rules of this challenge, to get anywhere with disarming the law breakers, we must make laws to remove the guns from the people who do obey laws. And if this feels weird to you, just remember…we who obey the laws are guilty for all of this killing, because we stand for arming these murderers, according to the author of this blog.

That is the only solution the challenge allows. Eliminate supply and then demand has no further meaning. No surprise here. Like I said, the question presupposes the answer. So, every gun must go.

But, why every gun in the country?

Ever clean a swimming pool? I used to. The bulk of the leaves, dirt, dead bugs, and turds in a public swimming pool mostly live in two parts of the pool. Like a cross section of our humanity, most of the dirt, turds, and dead bugs seem to hang with that thin veneer at the very top, and that larger lump at the bottom. Most of the middle of the pool is just water, with far less crap.

Now let’s say all that water in the swimming pool is the problem. Say the water is the guns in America. Three hundred million guns, plus or minus. Roughly one for every person. Lots of guns. And these guns, as established by the challenge, are the problem. The people at the bottom of the pool are committing violence with these guns. So how do you get the water out of the bottom of the pool?

Very good! You drain the pool. Of course, it matters not whether you take the water from the top of the pool or from the bottom. That last bit of water still remains in the bottom until the very end.

Oh, and even after you drain the pool, every time it rains, guess what? Ask the Brits how well draining the pool worked for them. Their pool bottom keeps refilling with guns, I mean water. And their "gun violence” is getting worse. Perhaps I’m wondering why the Brit who wrote a blog about violence in Chicago might be better served by…..

Maybe our pool will be different.

Sure, rather than disarm America, we could call an end to the War On Drugs, and thus put the drug gangs out of business. Just put an addendum on Obama Care and supply the heroin, crack, crank to the needy at taxpayer expense, and the gangs would have nothing to fight about any more. And boy would that make the folks in the hood happy. It’s better than free Obama cell phones. (I wonder; would that violate the rules of the blog?)

This would be so much better than when the “fascists” in the Regan administration supposedly introduced crack to the inner city to raise money for themselves and to keep them dark folks down. No, this would be OK onna counta Obama is on the side of the people, and if the people want drugs, the Obama government should supply them.

Some might have a problem with this, but heck, few would get shot over drugs anymore.

We are headed this way anyway, and I cannot say it won’t help, since illegal drugs have always caused more trouble than legal drugs.

But you still have to make every gun in the country go away, lest the guns wander over to those misanthropes who’d continue to steal and kill, and the hood will still be peopled with misanthropes. (Oops, sorry…can’t mention that) So, a universal gun ban becomes the order of the day. You must drain the pool. There is no alternative to this, if you are going to stop “gun violence”. If it is to be the guns’ fault, you have to lose all the guns.

If you stop and think about it, as the author of the blog would no doubt suggest, we will all feel better once we have discarded the Bill Of Rights, and our guns are all melted down for recycling. It was our fault all along, all that killing and mayhem down in Chicago. Once we own up to that, repent, and get with the program we should be all right.

Things will change over this, of course. It will simply ruin the pool for instance, and what if somebody actually falls into the empty pool and dies? Darned unintended consequences! But after the smoke clears, we will have a country free from “gun violence”.

Or not. For every time it rains…..

And unlike a swimming pool, that thin veneer on top of the people, the rich and powerful and those running government….they’d still have guns. They’ll see to that. The rules of the blog don’t prohibit this, for unlike all of us citizens who obey the laws, those people can be trusted.