The Gun Control Debate is Stunningly Stupid

Although the Senate is deep into negotiations about much needed Immigration Reform, there are behind the scene maneuverings to attempt another effort to pass reasonable Gun Control legislation.  Of course Conservatives immediately see these maneuvers and are already working to block these efforts.

While I find no fault in the proposed gun control legislation, I personally hate to see Democrats, Liberals and Progressives waste much needed time, effort and money trying to pass a bill that will not reduce gun violence by even a single death.  Emotions will run high, passions will be inflamed, the nation will be even more deeply divided (if that's possible), and people will still die in genocidal numbers.

Our problem here as Democrats, Progressives and Liberals is that our Conservative opponents are 100% correct: Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People!  If we genuinely want to reduce gun violence and needless deaths we have got to start attacking the real problems and guns aren't one of them.

I write often about murders and gun violence in Chicago.  It's easy to focus on Chicago because reporting is so good, statistics so readily available and the violence is so pervasive.  If you were only to read my blog you would think Chicago is the most dangerous place on earth.

The reality is that most of Chicago is just about the safest place in America!!  In fact in the parts of Chicago where most of the "known" guns are located (that would be legally purchased, licensed, registered and/or documented guns or rifles) there is little or no gun violence!  Curiously guns don't kill people in the North side of Chicago.  The guns are there, they people are there, but there is no violence.  In half of Chicago's 23 police districts there are virtually no murders.

But on Chicago's South and West sides, in fact in just a small part of Chicago geographically, virtually all the murders and shooting occur.  Almost all the guns are illegal, unreported and illegally obtained.  The police classify this as "gang violence."

If, as Liberals, we are bound and determined to blame inanimate objects for society's problems, then we must point out that guns are strangely prejudiced against the poor and against blacks, because that's who they shoot, wound and kill.  Damn those racist guns!.

The real factors in gun violence are poverty, lack of education and lack of opportunity.  In an incredibly controversial speech this week Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis decried the lack of funding for schools on Chicago's south and west sides.  She also condemned the lack of effort on the part of city leaders and "white" businessmen in investing in these communities.  Unfortunately she blamed "racism" and the resulting controversy obscured the real wisdom in her observations.

We must find ways to invest in children in the poverty stricken portions of Chicago.  We must improve education.  And we must change the cycle of violence, drugs, gangs and poverty that go on generation after generation.

Curiously, if we do that, the guns will become as silent on the South Side of Chicago as they are on the North side.

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Resources: ABC News: Chicago Teachers Union president calls for tax changes to fund schools

The New York Times: In a Soaring Homicide Rate, a Divide in Chicago

And the very powerful, interactive website that tracks Homicides on Chicago: Redeye Tracking homicides in Chicago

Addressing the Single Parent Epidemic

I've discussed my fellow Liberals desire to avoid the assignment of personal responsibility in several blog posts, most notably last December 29th in my post titled "Solving Gun Violence."  Here's what I had to say then: 

".....we avoid any assignment of personal responsibility.  We do not, under any circumstances blame personal lifestyles, personal choices or personal decisions. We never allow any blame that would insult or hurt an individual or the choices they have made or failed to make.

[For example] ....if a person drops out of school, that's the school's fault....  ...we never blame the teachers, or even dare to measure a teacher's ability or success.  That's personal and we don't do personal......"

One of the recent heroes today's liberals (in part because of his bizarre desire to ban large sugary sodas), Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, has dared to take on the single largest and most important issue in our society today, single parent families.  And he's dared to break the cardinal rule of liberals I outlined in the December 29th essay, he's daring to actually place some of the blame on today's youth!

The liberal communities response against Bloomberg has been overwhelmingly negative and very vitriolic.  According to nearly all my fellow liberals, young people who become pregnant outside of a stable family environment are totally blameless!  And they must never be shamed, slandered or made to feel the least bit bad!  Instead they are to be supported, nurtured, even praised for their bravery.

The New York Times' Michael Powell, writing a highly critical essay in the New York Times this week states categorically "Teenage pregnancy is a problem of poverty."

This level of stupidity from today's liberals and progressives is disastrous and is destroying lives and the very fabric of our society!

What Bloomberg is trying to do is to educate young people into making better, more reasoned decisions.  He is not advocating abstinence.  He is not eliminating sex education from public schools. Far from it! But he is trying to actually show young people the seriously negative outcome that arises from single parent child rearing.

In addition to teaching youth the mechanics if sex and methods of birth control Bloomberg is daring to teach them the dangers of failing to use that knowledge in their personal lives.

Wouldn't we have a problem is the teachers in wood shop taught students how to use a circular saw but then failed to teach them that they might lose a limb is they don't use the saw carefully?

Once again I am forced to turn to someone really brilliant to outline what ought to be obvious, the incomparable Ann Coulter who addresses this issue in this week's column, "In Fighting Teen Pregnancy, The Folly of Shame and Blame."  Read her whole essay, it's funny and insightful, as usual.

Coulter points out that the popular liberal causes from banning soda's to restricting guns will have virtually no impact of the health or welfare of children compared to the horrific damage inflicted by single family child rearing:

Liberals seem to believe that drinking soda is voluntary, but getting pregnant is more like catching the flu.

It would be hard to make the case that fast food, plastic bags and cigarettes do more damage than single motherhood. 

-- Controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single mother. 

-- At least 70 percent of juvenile murderers, pregnant teenagers, high school dropouts, teen suicides, runaways and juvenile delinquents were raised by single mothers. 

-- A study back in 1990 by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that, absent single motherhood, there would be no difference in black and white crime rates. 

It is critical to point out no one, not even Coulter, is advocating forcing unwed mother's to wed or to abort their children.  Instead both Bloomberg, and his unexpected defender Coulter, recommend education, something liberals would normally favor, except, I guess, if that education teaches personal responsibility.

As I pointed out in that December 29th essay, "We liberals don't do personal...."

The Restless Gun

Here's one little news story from this week I find more than a little disturbing:

7 Year Old Maryland Boy Suspended for Nibbling His Pop-Tart into the Shape of A Gun

A 7-year-old Baltimore boy was suspended Friday for two days after he shaped his breakfast pastry into what appeared to be a gun, his dad said. Josh Welch, who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, told Fox Baltimore that he was trying to shape the tart into a mountain. “It was already a rectangle, and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t,” Josh told the station.

“All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain.” 

Josh said his teacher was “pretty mad.”

Josh’s dad, who was not identified, said he received a phone call from the school, notifying him of the suspension. “I would almost call it insanity,” he said. “I mean with all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school, real threats, bullies, whatever the real issue is, it’s a pastry. … Ya know?” 

A letter was sent home with Park Elementary School students Friday explaining that “a student used food to make an inappropriate gesture,” the station reported.

I wish this was some sort of weird isolated instance, but it's not.  It's happening again and again, all over the country.

- Feb. 8, 2013 - Yep - That's just yesterday, A student had his Birthday Party Cupcakes confiscated because they were decorated with small toy soldiers.

- Feb. 1, 2013 - A 9-year-old student was suspended for bringing a 2-inch toy gun on a key fob to school.

- Jan. 29, 2013 - A 5-year-old student could be suspended for crafting a Lego gun during an after-school program. We're told by school officials he is a repeat offender.

- Jan. 22, 2013 - Yet another 5-year-old is suspended because, well, those damned 5 year old's are so dangerous.  And there is certainly no sex discrimination in suspensions because this one's a girl. Her crime was talking about her Hello Kitty bubble gun.

- Jan. 2, 2013 - A 6-year-old in a Washington D.C. school was suspended for making a gun gesture with his hands.  Fingers and six year old's don't mix.

- August 28, 2012 - A deaf 3-year-old preschooler has been asked to change the American Sign Language hand gesture used to signify his name, Hunter, which he signs by forming a gun with his hands. Apparently, "saying" his name violates the school's weapon policy.

Part of what bothers me here is that our society in caught in a double think mentality that makes George Orwell's most nightmarish scenarios seem tame.  One minute we heap unparalleled praise on Director Quentin Tarantino for his bloodbath movies that glorify gratuitous violence and make heroes out of murderers and terrorists.  


The next minute we praise Kevin Bacon's new television series "The Following" whose hero, Dr. Joe Carroll, is a psychopathic mass murderer with a cult following of hundreds of like groupies who murder upon command.  Each week this new hit series has multiple graphic murders with maximum blood and gore in every episode.  Some murders are actually so graphic they are sickening.

Even shows and movies aimed at children like the Transformer Movies, are filled to overflowing with gratuitous violence.

Ahhhh, but the very next minute next we suspend 7 year olds from school for chewing their breakfast into a gun shaped biscuit.

When I was eight years old there was a hit television series called "The Restless Gun" that starred John Payne.  In this western Payne played a retired law officer, Vint Bonner, with great patience and restraint who always sought a non-violent path out of any confrontation.  Sadly, at least once each week, Payne was forced to use his signature gun, a pistol that could be transformed into a rifle.  it was the original assault weapon."

Since Payne's character, Vint Bonner, was a hero and the gun was so fantastic, I wanted the toy cap gun version!  And my parents bought me one!! It was the neatest toy ever, at least for an eight year old in 1957.

Sadly I no longer have this toy.  Sadly because these incredibly rare toys sell for many hundreds of dollars at auction, often as much as a thousand dollars for what was, no doubt, a ten dollar toy.  There are none available on ebay today or I'd post a link for you.

My point is that children always imitate their heroes from televison and movies.  It's called "playing,"  Doing so is called "using your imagination," a skill once highly prized and cultivated in children.  In fact, John Payne's most famous acting roll was playing the young lawyer, Fred Gailey, in the classic movie "Miracle on 34th Street."  In that movie Payne and the wonderful Edwin Gwenn, who plays Kris Kringle, try to teach a very young Natalie Wood to use her imagination. 

Back in the day I watched an old black and white television.  Today's 8 year olds sit before large screen, 3-D color televisions, especially good at portraying blood red.  Why do we think children won't imitate what they see in TV, good or bad?  

One last note, in 1958, when Vint Bonner always stood for up for what is right and always tried to avoid violence and every child had a toy cap gun, the murder rate in the United States was only about 4.3 murders per 100,000 people.  Since that year the murder rate in the United States has never been that low.

One last, last note, on April 23, 2013 all 78 original episodes of The Restless Gun: The Complete Serieswill be released on DVD.

No News IS NOT Good News

Just because you didn't see or hear this headline this morning doesn't mean it didn't happen. The big networks simply chose to ignore it.


3 People Murdered and another 18 injured in Gun Violence on Saturday in Chicago

If you watch network news, ABC, CBS or NBC or if you watch cable news, FOX, CNN or MSNBC or if you listen to NPR you didn't know that.  They were all too busy rehashing the 12 murdered and 58 injured in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday morning to bother to mention that murders continue unabated across the country.


As I write this President Obama is flying over Chicago to visited the families of the victims in Aurora to give them comfort, according to the White House Press Secretary.


He will never mention the nearly 300 murdered in Chicago so far this year.  He will not be stopping to give comfort to the grieving families of Gerry Woods, Akil Partee or Pablo Hernandez, all murdered Friday night and Saturday morning.


How I wish George W. Bush were still President.  Not because I want him back in office, but because if he pulled the stunt of flying over the families of 300 black and Latino victims to give aid and comfort to 12 white victims, my fellow Democrats would condemn him for racism, insensitivity and incompetence.  Instead we have President Obama and the silence of the Democratic lambs.


I don't blame President Obama.  It's not racism, it's politics.  Colorado is a swing state.  He needs their votes.  Chicago will vote for Obama regardless of how much he ignores or even abuses its citizens.


And, lets be honest, the Chicago problem is one of unemployment, poverty and failed social engineering.  It's going to be tough to fix.  And President Obama is not up to the task.  He is way to small, way to weak to take on a mission this large.


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On a related note, my friend Steve is launching a series on the need for Gun Control and ways to successfully implement it over on his blog The Peripatetic Blogger Steve and I might not always agree on this issue, but I urge you to read his blog and consider his opinions and solutions carefully.  We need everyone's ideas.  We need all hands on deck.

The Growing Layers of Failure

The irony is so thick here it could be used as mortar to cement bricks.


STORY ONE (via National Public Radio): Kansas City's Failed Schools Leave Students Behind


STORY TWO (via The Blaze): North Carolina Food Police Replaces Nutritious Homemade Lunches with Deep Fried Processed Chicken Nuggets

PHOTO BY TOM BULLOCK OF NPR

The tragedy in Kansas City schools in story ONE above is simply heartbreaking.  The Kansas City failure is a story of a revolving door of administrators, an incompetent school board, middle class flight to private schools and suburban districts, and a teachers union deeply invested in a system that assures failure.  Scott Simon of NPR will continue this series next Saturday and I hope you will all tune in or visit the NPR Website.


I've written often here that Government does absolutely nothing well.  There are some things that only Government can do, the military is the most often mentioned example.  But even then the waste, incompetence, the inefficiencies and corruption is staggering.  


I'm guessing next week, Scott Simon will at least mention the state is considering Charter Schools or even privatizing the entire failed Kansas City School System.  This is exactly what should happen.


Meanwhile, via story TWO above, we have our government taking on another task that it will mismanage completely.  The well meaning North Carolina Legislature wanted to make sure children in the pre-kindergarten program had the proper nutrition to help them prepare for school.  Unfortunately, they only created a bureaucracy of food police following bureaucratic guidelines without even a modicum of logic or intelligence.  


So we have nameless inspectors not allowing children to eat a homemade meat and cheese sandwich on a whole wheat bun with fruit and fruit juice and instead forcing the child to eat in the school cafeteria.  Because the inspector is only "doing his job" he has no idea what the school cafeteria lunch actually is.  His job is to simply inspect the homemade lunch to be certain it has two fruits and vegetables. He doesn't care his actions forced the child to eat deep fried processed chicken nuggets with white bread and milk and ABSOLUTELY NO VEGETABLES!!!.


Somewhere along the line the mission of schools to teach got lost and their new mission is monitor homemade lunches.


As Liberals we should not ever be invested in the process, but only in the results. By definition Liberals should think outside the box, love alternatives and innovation.  We should not be invested in methodology of the past.  We should always strive for new, groundbreaking solutions.  It's time we realized that government is virtually never the solution.


Our goals and dreams must never change, but we must be willing to follow new paths toward achieving those goals.