Guns cause Violence, right?
We hear that all the time fromthe fine folks at such illustrious Moral Paladin organizations as The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
The CSV main page says:
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence seeks to secure freedom from gun violence through research, strategic engagement and effective policy advocacy.
The Brady Campaign, no less iconoclastic, says:
We are devoted to creating an America free from gun violence, where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities.
These Mission Statements strongly suggest that they have determined the cause of "gun violence", and are working to remove these causal factors from American Society.
Reading the details, their only goal is to reduce or eliminate the availability of firearms ("guns") to private citizens ... law-abiding or otherwise.
The proof of their theory, that guns are the direct cause of "gun violence", is that the communities and states which most restrict access to firearms are and should be those which most stringently restrict the private ownership of firearms.
Case in point: Chicago, Illinois.
Chicago is the municipality which, when confronted with the indisputable decision in HELLER V DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, refused to conform to the guidelines of "the second amendment defines an individual right". It is still, after all these months, almost impossible to receive 'permission' from the City of Chicago (and the State of Illinois, although who knows what will happen in the Illinois State Assembly now that Rod Blagojevich is out of office.).
Since the vast majority of its residents cannot legally possess a firearm, Chicago should logically be a bastion of peace, serenity, good citizenship and conviviality. Right?
BZZZZZZT!
Sorry, Charley, that's not the way it works.
Last weekend, seven Chicago residents (every one of which was unarmed) were shot down in the street - during a period which, judging from the Chicago Tribune Article, seems to extend for less than 12 hours.
A 30-year-old Chicagoan who was striving to be the "man of the house" in which he and his extended family lived was killed and two of his cousins were wounded Saturday evening in a shooting near their South Side home.
The shootings occurred on the 10500 block of South Indiana Avenue in the Roseland neighborhood about 11 p.m., down the block from the home of the fatal gunshot victim, Demond Stansbury.
Stansbury was among seven people slain in several shootings Saturday night and Sunday in Chicago. No one was charged in any of the slayings.
Calvin Stansbury said he, his brother Steven and Demond were talking with several other people in a vacant lot when the gunman approached them. Words were exchanged, then shots were fired.
"I got shot, my brother got shot in the knee and my cousin, one of my best friends, he's dead," said Calvin Stansbury, who was treated for a wound to the arm and released.
Steven Stansbury, 30, was treated at a hospital and released.
- Shooting incidents in one day: 6
- Shooting victims: 7
- Shooters arrested: 0
(That doesn't count in the "Number of incidents/victims/arrested" stats, by the way.)
Chicago police said a 46-year-old man calmly shopped for food at the Aldi supermarket, 6621 S. Cottage Grove Ave., at 10 a.m. Sunday and was leaving when he walked up to the security guard and stuck a handgun in his face, police said. After a brief struggle, the security guard shot the man twice in his leg, police said.
Somehow, this information doesn't seem to support the social theories of either CSV or HCI.
If I have somehow mis-interpreted or subverted the message of these incidents, I do hope you will help me out. For example, it may be that the shooting of a shopper by a security guard DOES caount in the number of incidents.
To tell the truth, in all the excitement, I kinda lost count.
So you got to ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?"
Well, do you?
Punk?
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