Front Page Magazine hits a grand slam home run with a story about the real problem in America. It’s not guns. It’s gangs.
These gangs are turning our inner cities into third-world war zones.
And Obama and his voters blame gun owners.
America Doesn’t Have a Gun Problem, It Has a Gang Problem
(Front Page Magazine) – Chicago’s murder numbers have hit that magic 500. Baltimore’s murder toll has passed 200. In Philly, it’s up to 324, the highest since 2007. In Detroit, it’s approaching 400, another record. In New Orleans, it’s almost at 200. New York City is down to 414 from 508. In Los Angeles, it’s over 500. In St. Louis it’s 113 and 130 in Oakland. It’s 121 in Memphisand 76 in Birmingham.
Washington, D.C., home of the boys and girls who can solve it all, is nearing its own big 100.
Those 12 cities alone account for nearly 3,200 dead and nearly a quarter of all murders in the United States. And we haven’t even visited sunny Atlanta or chilly Cleveland.
Highlights from the rest of the story, all WELL worth reading in its entirety.
- It isn’t the bitter gun-and-bible clingers in McCain and Romney territory who are racking up a more horrifying annual kill rate than Al Qaeda; it’s Obama’s own voting base.
- …Homicide rates like these show that something is broken, but it isn’t broken among the Romney voters rushing to stock up on assault rifles every time Obama begins threatening their right to buy them; it’s broken among Obama’s base.
- …Chicago’s problem isn’t guns; it’s gangs.
- …Our national murder rate is not some incomprehensible mystery that can only be attributed to the inanimate tools, the steel, brass and wood that do the work. It is largely the work of adult males from age 18 to 39 with criminal records killing other males of that same age and criminal past.
- …America’s horrific murder rate is a result of the transformation of major American cities into Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda and El Salvador. Our murder rate now largely consists of criminals killing criminals.
- …Obama’s pretense that there needs to be a national conversation about rural American gun owners is a dishonest and cynical ploy that distracts attention from the real problem that he and politicians like him have sat on for generations.
- America is, on a county by county basis, not a violent country, just as it, on a county by county basis, did not vote for Obama. It is being dragged down by broken cities full of broken families whose mayors would like to trash the Bill of Rights for the entire country in the vain hope that national gun control will save their cities, even though gun control is likely to be as much help to Chicago or New Orleans as the War on Drugs.
- We do not need to have a conversation about the NRA. We need to have a conversation about Chicago.
Population growth in dense urban areas is an important dynamic politically since these areas can outvote much larger expanses of a state or country and tend to be more liberal. For instance, look at a map showing presidential election results by county and note that the U.S. is red from the standpoint of acreage but this is often outweighed by voters in dense metropolitan areas.
This is why it is essential that gun ownership be promoted, seen as normal and reasonable, and gain traction within both political parties.
The urban citizen / voter that is normally detached from firearm culture and only experiences firearms as depicted on TV, in a video game, or in the hands of police or thugs is a potential ally to the gun owning and enthusiast community.
Gun ownership and the importance of weapon rights needs to be meaningful to and valued by this portion of our population. The dense urban population will continue to grow and has the potential to outvote and out-media more pro gun and pro self-defense viewpoints. These potential allies must include women and media directed to women.
The liberal media is an urban media and firearms are not currently portrayed in this media as a safety-enhancing and democratizing part of progressive urban life.
Well, guns ARE clearly a problem. The shootings in schools, cinemas et al – these are not carried out by gangs. Yes gangs and criminals indeed account for the majority of murders in the US, but let’s be realistic – if all the guns were removed from US soil (impossible but let’s theorise), there would be no gun crime, violent crime with guns would disappear. Yes there may be other violent crime to replce it, but not on the shear numbers the US has now. I live in the UK, and we have violent crime too – but very little with guns, simply because every man and his dog cannot simply buy a gun. It is indeed quite difficult to buy and own a gun with severe restrictions. And therefore, we do not have much violent crime involving guns. So if the US followed the UK, making it difficult to own or buy a gun -gun crime would eventually plummet. The problem is that Americans are obsessed with owning a gun, it’s in your nature – somehow, Americans just cannot imagine not owning a gun. For me, I cannot imagine why you would want to own one. The olde excuse ‘he has one so I must have one too in order to defend myelf’ is just plain ridiculous. get rid of all the guns, let no one own or carry a gun except those legally required to do so and you will see a change. Not overnight but in 10 years time when the guns have all but disappeared off the streets, you will count perhaps figures 5% what they are now.
Oh Jack, my boy.
We’ve tried a time in history when the common man was debarred the use of weapons.
It was known as the Medieval times.
You wrote: “violent crime with guns would disappear. Yes there may be other violent crime to replce it, but not on the shear numbers the US has now.”
Perhaps, Jack. But it would again be a time when the strong dominated and victimized the weak, the old, the very young and the women. It would again be a time of tyrannical oppression.
Americans today have no desire to recreate the oppressive times of the past.
But thanks for playing.
john
Well, I live in the UK too, and after the 1988 on ban on hand guns, the count of crimes where firearms were used ‘declined’ from about 400 a year to over 40,000, as criminals found they didn’t have to have a license or risk a victim being armed. . Also the channel tunnel meant criminals can truck in guns from the continent, (Belgium has lax gun sales). A gun can be got for about $70 with a discount if no ammo is used on return. Very Very large numbers of ‘immigrants’ intruders have got into the country, who are not here legally, used to shooting people an think nothing of doing it here. Police are expected to be ethnically considerate, so we have riots where guns are also used. But the police are expected to be ‘sensitive’ to rioters needs. say no more.
Amazing how all the Limeys are still trying to tell Americans what to think and what to do. That’s why we all kicked you off of our continent in the late 1700s and again after the war of 1812. Trying to seize the civilian gunpowder stores was what started the Revolutionary War in the first place.
The USA is our own nation today because we were armed, and able to kick the British out. The US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were written to get rid of British thinking and influence. We don’t want it back.
Since we haven’t been your ‘colonists’ for over 250 years, I personally couldn’t care less what you British think, so take your opinion and Piers Morgan back to your pathetic little island and just shut up! By the way, British gun control in Northern Ireland really worked out well, everybody just switched to making bombs and you guys had martial law and a 30 plus year civil war there. Nice going.
Americans bought our freedom with individually owned guns-and we keep guns to keep our freedom, what little of it is left.
Speaking of wars, you English did not seem to mind the millions of guns, tanks and airplanes that we supplied you with from 1940 through 1941, before we were even at war with Germany. If it weren’t for us gun-loving Americans, your pathetic little island would have been wiped out and you would be speaking German today.
Now to current events – the English SUN newspaper headline that says that there are 6 knife murders a week in England – Knives are the chosen weapon of street gangs. Does it make you feel better that your citizens are killed by knives instead of guns? How about all those criminals and gang members knowing that they are safe to stab anyone they want, even in their own homes because IT IS GUARANTEED THAT THEIR ENGLISH VICTIMS WILL NOT BE ARMED. Add to that the fact that England has more CCTV cameras per person than anywhere else in the world, so your ‘freedom’ and privacy is already in the toilet.
How about the fact that starting in 2009, due to violent street crime and riots, that British police are now carrying SUBMACHINE GUNS on the streets of London, while American police usually make do with just a pistol or shotgun. Is that your so-called ‘gun free’ utopia you are defending? English law even prosecutes people for defending themselves in their own homes from burglars and other attackers. Self-defense in England is illegal. No thanks.
In Kansas City Missouri, in the last month, 7 police cars were broken into, and all the guns were stolen. So much for your argument that getting rid of all citizen-owned guns stops gun violence. You can pretty much bet that it wasn’t law-abiding concealed carry permit holders who broke into the cop cars, so it is a safe bet that when criminals want guns, they will get them.
Gun control removes another individual choice that free people have. It allows other people and government more power over the individual. Gun control limits and takes away the average human being’s tools and ability for self-defense. Even more so for the elderly, disabled, and average woman, who is facing larger, stronger, vicious, and usually armed, violent criminals with nothing to lose.
Disarming law abiding citizens, or limiting where people are allowed to be armed invites crime, and gets innocent people killed every day.
The Aurora, Colorado theater was a “gun-free zone” where all guns are prohibited.
The Sandy Hook School was a “gun-free zone” where all guns are prohibited.
Are people wanting gun control really so stupid as to believe that a drugged-up criminal intent on killing as many people as he can is NOT going to take a gun somewhere because someone posted a sign or wrote a law making it a “gun-free zone”? Those murderous cowards picked those locations BECAUSE they were “gun-free zones” so they could shoot unarmed fish in a barrel with the government’s guarantee that no one would be shooting back.
They were cowards, period. They did not start shooting in a police station, or gun store, or at an NRA rally because they were cowards seeking unarmed, helpless victims.
If you do not want to own a gun, you are free to be defenseless and to hope and expect that others (Police) will protect your life and the lives of your loved ones. Good luck with that, but do not attempt to condem law-abiding gun owners who chose to protect themselves instead of expecting the government to do it for them. What is more foolish? Armed citizens or unarmed victims? Too bad we can’t ask the dead.
Every adult victim in a public shooting died because they were not able to defend themselves. They were not prepared to defend themselves. They died because of a tragic and impossible fantasy that says the government will always protect you.
During Hurricane Katrina, when citizens needed their government the most, the police were shooting unarmed citizens in the back and burning them alive in their cars. Hundreds of others drowned. Over 1,800 Americans died. But don’t worry, the government still had time to go door-to-door and confiscate people’s firearms.
Law-abiding citizens that choose to own guns have enough courage, intelligence, and determination to accept the innate personal responsibility and duty of defending themselves and their families if violence finds them. We are not willing to be helpless, defenseless victims at the mercy of the merciless.
I think you got that about right, but it would be a better world where guns were not NEEDED as a deterrent or defense. I just don’t think that is ever going to happen, so using firearms for defense seems reasonable, If the US banned civilians from owning guns, only criminals would have guns, Trust me its not nice not being able to defend yourself, over here in the UK, a person will be automatically prosecuted : a recent case of a robber tried to steal from a connivence store, the owner was put in custody for defending the store, the criminal went free. ( was on You TUbe vid) REAL STORY . Martin
Click your heels and wish for a “better world” all you want. The rest of us live in the real world.
You hit the nail on the head! The only problem is, you’re focusing on the wrong “gangs”! The two most powerful and most dangerous gangs in America are the DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans and that sooner we find a way to get rid of these two gangs the sooner we can concentrate on eliminating the others.
We have gangs in the UK too. They are a problem.
We also have 4000% less firearm deaths per year than the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Our murder rate is higher than the UK, but your overall violent crime rate is much higher than ours. Take a look at this 6-minute video. It raises some good questions and suggests some realistic answers:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c82_1357146088
Sorry John! I just noticed that you had already posted this video.
I have it on good authority that jboch posed for the cover photo of this article.
With 300 million firearms in private hands (one-third of them pistols), the overwhelming majority of gun owners ARE responsible, law-abiding citizens, which is why horrific massacres are not commonplace, but rather terrible outliers that can never be legislated away (e.g. DC, Chicago, and “Gun Free Zones”).
For several examples for the recent use of firearms for defensive purposes not typically reported by the national media please visit: http://www.equalforce.net and forward this site to others to whom this information may be useful. @forceequalizer