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Why guns shouldn’t go: a clear, concise, and abnormal argument
Just like the insurance giant AIG was brought down to its knees by a rogue London branch of the company, so could American liberties be thrown away to deal with small factions of the country, and factions that aren’t representative of the majority of Americans, at that (1).
But before explaining how this might happen, a statement must be made. This article is not intended to belittle anyone beyond their personal behavior, nor is it meant to paint an entire group of people with the same brush. As a Christian, this writer understands that the wages of sin is death, and that apart from Christ we’re all sinful creatures, worthy of damnation and completely without hope. But just as we’re all equal in our depravity without Christ, we are equal in our Heavenly Father’s eyes when we accept Christ and become brothers and sisters in Him.
However, in order to protect the common good of the majority of Americans, some issues must be brought to light in this day and age, they’re not all fun to deal with, and they don’t engender the inclusive tone that brotherhood in Christ brings. That being said, today’s topic is gun control, and why certain very tiny groups of people are responsible for and generally subjected to the gun violence we read about, and why these groups of people are the only reason that anti-gun legislation is successful at all. In order to preserve the only things keeping us from history’s long chain of violent and brutally domineering governments, Americans must not only know the truth about gun violence in America, but speak the truth and live by it.
1) Where are murders happening?
To get started, let’s look at some cities. Chicago has recently declared that they’ve had five hundred and eight school children shot within a sixteen month period (2). Detroit was recently named America’s most dangerous city (3). Gary, Indiana has a murder rate almost nine times the national average (4). Washington DC has a murder rate almost six times that of the national average (5). Baltimore has a murder rate over five times the national average (6). Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love” has a murder rate three times the national average (7).
These cities aren’t just grouped together because they’re incredibly dangerous, though, but also because they have gigantic similarities: they’re all ranked as some of the most liberal cities in America, and they have large Black populations (8). In fact, most of the “most liberal” cities in America have the highest violent crime rates (even safe Seattle has almost double the average rate(16)), and they look embarrassingly dangerous when compared to their “most conservative” counterparts such as Provo, Abilene, Lubbock, Hialeah, and Plano, the top five conservative cities in the US. All top conservative cities have murder rates less than the national average, with Provo reporting no murders and the most dangerous city still twice as safe as Seattle (9)(17)(18)(19)(20).
2) How are murders committed?
The second piece of information that should be made common knowledge is that guns are overwhelmingly the objects of use in American murders. The US Department of Justice reports that knives and blunt objects trail far behind guns, with gun murders comprising 2/3 of all cases (10). So if it could be said that most murders occur in liberal cities with largely Black populations, and if it could be said that 2/3 of those murders involved guns, then it could be said (using a layman’s approach) that most of the murders involving guns are committed in liberal cities with large Black populations.
3) Who are the shooters?
The next piece of information we should consider is who the shooters are. In 2007, Maryland was the subject of a large federal research project because Maryland kept the most detailed information regarding gun sales, and this project sought to understand what kinds of sales ended in criminal activity (11). What they found was that guns sold to Blacks near the liberal city of Baltimore had a 21-32% chance of being recovered by a criminal investigation within five years, over four to five times higher than a gun sale to a White person (11, see pg.79-82). Other non-White groups fared nearly as poorly, and when gun sales were made to Whites outside the liberal city of Baltimore, the likelihood of gun recovery after a criminal act dropped significantly (11, pg,82). Also worth noting is that Baltimore comprised a third of all gun purchases in the state of Maryland (11, pg.4).
4) Who are the victims?
Finally, we should be looking at who’s being shot. Research done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that 21% of all male arrestees had been shot in a previous incident, and that 2/3 of all firearms victims in Philadelphia from 1985 to 1990 had prior criminal histories (12, pg.5). So, if the majority of gun crimes are committed in major liberal and Black cities, and anywhere up to 2/3 of the victims could already be criminals, is gun control really the solution? Not to say that innocent people aren’t murdered on a daily basis by gun-wielding criminals, but still—this point is worth considering.
There are three things we need to be aware of, though, before we make our case for gun rights. The first is that across the entire United States of America at this moment, Blacks in liberal cities do both the majority of the shooting and the dying, regardless of the miniscule portion of the population they comprise (13)(14). We need to keep this in mind because our “great” media machine prefers to constantly repeat stories about White and Asian murderers due to a liberal bias and the threat of lawsuits from clowns like Al Sharpton, who’d prefer America to be lynching innocent Duke students. Second, we need to keep in mind that although murder rates in the Black population had declined between 1993 and 2000, they have recently spiked back up to their previously dangerous levels, but this problem seems to be located in the very precise and ideologically defined areas mentioned above(15). Last, we need to remember that most of history’s heinous “wholesale” violations of human rights (aka mass murder) are committed by totalitarian governments–not by the citizens of Detroit–and that a Stalin is always scarier than a Jamal.
5) What Americans need to ask
So in light of these facts, we should ask ourselves the following tough, but important question: is it fair, right, or prudent for the majority to throw away our only defense from an overbearing government—a gift bought with the blood of our valiant and righteous forefathers—because a very small minority group is doing most of the shooting intraracially (13)? And must the reader be reminded that our ancestors’ blood was spilt not by random layabouts , but rather by a government which thought itself their master?
The reason we need to ask this is because politicians need Americans to feel as though they’re under siege in order to pass these laws, and the truth is that the siege exists… but only for Black, criminal, and liberal city-dwellers. The truth is that liberalism has done Blacks a huge disfavor, telling them they’re not smart enough, strong enough, moral enough to take care of themselves, and thorough decay is what you get when you strip someone of their integrity, their right to be a noble human being. Let the reader understand one thing: if a Black, Christian, conservative town exists in the United States, it is as safe as Salt Lake City.
So before we go after the guns, we should consider going after the liberalism and the lousy morality that made these cities hell-holes in the first place, because—putting it as nicely as possible—left-wing policies clearly aren’t working, and the people who take the conservative Christian road are generally doing just fine. After all, we know that guns really don’t kill people. Not in Provo, anyway.
1) AIG brought to its knees by rogue London traders
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10153#frame_top
2) Chicago students: the new Swiss cheese
http://wcbstv.com/national/Chicago.School.Students.2.955165.html
3) Detroit as America’s most dangerous city
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21870766/
4) Crime stats: Gary Indiana
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Gary&state=IN
5) Crime stats: Washington DC
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Washington&state=DC
6) Crime stats: Baltimore
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Baltimore&state=MD
7) Crime stats: Philadelphia
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Philadelphia&state=PA
8) The most liberal cities and their demographics
http://govpro.com/content/gov_imp_31439/
9) Crime stats: Provo
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Provo&state=UT
10) Murders by weapon
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_08.html
11) Federal investigation of gun sales in Maryland
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221074.pdf
12) Gun assaults in Philadelphia
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fifc.pdf
13) Gun homicides generally intraracial
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
14) Census findings
http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/NC-EST2007-srh.html
15) The recent Black murder spree
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/29/national/main4689265.shtml
16) Seattle’s crime
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Seattle&state=WA
17) Crime stats: Abilene
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Abilene&state=TX
18) Crime stats: Lubbock
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Lubbock&state=TX
19) Crime stats: Hialeah
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Hialeah&state=FL
20) Crime stats: Plano
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Plano&state=TX
13. August 2009 at 00:49
I’m not sure politics really has anything to do with gun murders. Its correlation not causation. One thing you over look is the fact that minorities tend to vote liberal, more likely to be in poverty, and to live in cheaper areas as a result. This means you will have large minority groupings in certain underdeveloped areas with little means of income other than crime.
The key here is not that those are liberal cities, but that there are high concentrations of poverty and relatively low opportunity in those cities. Detroit is probably the most obvious example of this.
You are right though in that gun control doesn’t always correlate with low homocide rates (at least in the US), but you need to explain why the entire rest of the developed world has a lower homicide rates, including those liberal bastions as Norway, Finland, France and Germany.
13. August 2009 at 01:16
I have reposted some of our facebook discourse over my concern of the easily construed as racist article you have posted:
In “On Liberty”, the philosopher John Stuart Mill engaged what he called the “Tyranny of the Majority”. Essentially he argued that as the majority elects to pursue certain societal directions it may do so at the price of violating the welfare of minorities. While I appreciate your caveat regarding the dis-empowerment of minorities due to the constantly circulating rhetoric of racial politics, I am dismayed at your reference to the will of the majority as being something to uphold, apparently, at great cost. I am also dismayed and offended at what seems to be the capstone of the article, the statement that “The reason we need to ask this is because politicians need Americans to feel as though they’re under siege in order to pass these laws, and the truth is that the siege exists… but only for Black, criminal, and liberal city-dwellers.” We stand and fall as a community, not as racial groups, not as majorities, not as minorities groups….And just because such people groups may be associated with violence does not mean it is just their problem, nor does it mean the issue is endemic to their racial association. As a nation we must take responsibility and work on a solution for equality across the boards. Jesus never advocated rights, only duties born of love. This simple truth, in my mind, challenges the core of the American myth, and much of what you claim in your article.
13. August 2009 at 17:28
Kyle and James, thank you for the comments! Now to get to both of you :)
Kyle, I’m of the belief that ideals influence behavior, and thus social outcomes. Do you believe that poverty comes from lack of structure, or lack of structure from poverty? This is a pretty big difference between liberals and conservatives, because conservatives tend to believe that all human beings have the ability to make decisions that affect whether or not they rape and murder. Rewarding immorality with fiscal outlays and ignoring the root problems only leads to more problems.
I know you’ll probably hate this, but here’s another article I wrote about that very subject, and how philosophies of the Left and Right differ substantially on the ideas of poverty, crime, and ideals.
http://americanclarity.com/2009/03/22/of-conservatives-and-dogs-combating-stupid-bumperstickers/
James, I have one question to ask you: if liberty itself was incapable of being safely used by a minority group, would you advocate the banning of liberty for the safety of that group? Is liberty only to be had if everyone involved is doing well?
We have duties to our fellow man: in this you are correct. But liberty isn’t something to be tossed away because someone can’t handle it. Liberty is always bought with blood (even the spiritual liberty we cherish), and we need to treat it as such, knowing that after we refuse to, blood will be required to reestablish its position in our lives. The right to bear arms is one of the cornerstone liberties this Republic will need in order to remain free from oppression.
Thanks to both of you, and I’ll be checking your blog out today, James!
13. August 2009 at 21:33
Please feel welcome to contribute to the blog I share at any time Jeremy! Your perspective would add a new angle there.
In order to deny an entire community such basic equality and justice one would have to completely violate the 15th amendment…
I feel that your views espouse no clear understanding of the tension between liberty, justice, individual rights and equality. One reason populism is a violation of modern democracy is because it sacrifices individual rights for collective desires…
It sounds like the line of reasoning that your blog advocates, if taken to its logical extent, would sacrifice a lot more than just the supposed preciousness of our right as Americans to have an assault rifle. If a legal framework was created that allowed a majority rules premise to take hold, imagine what could happen to bible thumping evangelicals?
And this is where the path of logic you are using leads!
Furthermore, in the context of our relationship with the Lord, this entire conversation is pretty much moot. I really don’t think the Lord cares much about our Republic as a national entity. We are totally self consumed, and the conservative ethic proves this as much or more than the liberal ethic you argue against with such tenacity.
God cares about humanity; he cares about His people. Our opportunity to fulfill Jesus’s command that we love our God and love our neighbor would only be strengthened if our government went the direction you fear. So whether or not we lose the right to bear arms, which we won’t I am fairly certain, it’s a win win situation, unless we syncretise our Christianity with Americana and in doing so build walls between us and those the Lord has called us to reach…
14. August 2009 at 15:49
I’m selfish? Brother, is it selfish to understand that the most dangerous cities in America are the most liberal cities in America, and that no real improvements have been made with poverty and crime in liberal cities despite increasingly liberal policies? Should those cities not be utopias, if in fact liberalism is saving them?
Is it selfish to say that I refuse to place babies in debt to pay for my social services? Is it selfish to want a sound dollar, free from the inflationary powers of the welfare state? Is it selfish to have an understanding of economics that prizes creative destruction, and understands that the correlation between welfare and crime and illegitimacy is strong? If this is selfish, I stand guilty as charged. I do not believe that government policy that monetarily reinforces not just bad behavior, but sin, is acceptable. Nor do I believe that being generous with someone else’s money is a praiseworthy virtue, or that stealing (through inflation) from those who save–the elderly– is Godly. It doesn’t matter who you give the money to.
Also worth noting is that protecting the right to bear arms is not the same thing as waging ethnic warfare against blacks. I’m going to ask you to please consider the fact that you just likened discriminatory religious persecution to allowing a group of people to run with scissors. The former is inter-cultural, the latter is intra-cultural.
Take this example, for instance: is the crime of any particular city the fault of all people in that city’s country? And if the people in that city cannot handle the responsibility of constitutional liberty, should the country be forced to forego theirs? Wouldn’t taking away the primary defenses of the majority’s liberty in fact be an imposition of a minority’s punishment upon an overwhelmingly undeserving group?
I couldn’t help but notice that Detroit has incredibly high rates of rape and illegitimate childbirth, along with all the other extremely liberal cities in the nation. I’m absolutely sure this isn’t due to poverty. Please explain this, and also explain why extramarital sex hasn’t been banned throughout the US because of Detroit’s rape addiction.