One of the few situations in current American life where race makes all the difference.
I think it’s safe to say the nation is scandalized by (1) mass shootings and (2) the carnage on our streets. I think these deserve to be seen as two separate, unrelated problems. One is essentially a problem of white people, the other a problem of blacks. The only common factor is guns.
It’s common for white people who don’t want to face the problem of mass shootings, to call attention to the carnage on our streets and ignore the whiteness of the former. It’s common likewise for blacks who don’t want to face the carnage on our streets, to call attention to mass shootings and ignore the blackness of the latter. This is irresponsible on both sides. Each group needs to own its own problem.
An extremely bigoted Friend of a Friend on FaceBook posted a graphic recently purporting to show that most mass shootings in 2019 have been perpetrated by blacks. The fact is that the more people killed in any one event, the more likely it is the shooter was white.
No one knows what moves these people to do these things. What is known for sure is that they have one weapon of choice, the AR-15. If we were to ban this weapon, it would no longer be available for these people to commit these crimes.
A law can do this.
No law can do anything about the carnage on our streets. The common criminal will never be disarmed. It’s illegal now for a convicted felon to have a gun, yet practically every report of a gun crime involves such a person.
There are many, many more gun felons than mass shooters.
And for some reason that, likewise, nobody understands, they currently seem to be concentrated in Baltimore and Chicago.
The only solution to this problem is a change of consciousness among black people.
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