We have seemed to have forgotten that this country has an obsession with guns. Yes, you read it correctly an obsession. Well, the founding fathers annihilated the native Americans with it. They enslaved the African with it and became one of the wealthiest nations in the world. They have created nuclear forms of it. That they threaten to use against a smaller nation that considers developing one of there own. So yes I understand why American’s love their guns. What I don’t understand is the current conversation about gun reform.
Is gun reform a liberal term used to appease white constituents? Because they never seem to speak of the thousands of deaths caused by illegal guns in black communities. Or how those guns got into the hands of black youth? Would gun reform do something about this? Could more screening and background checks stop gun violence in the “hood”? Is that why black people are so attached to the conversation on gun reform or are they more concerned about white children at white schools that get killed by white kids? Is that just white on white crime? Or is that just a term used when black kids kill each other; Hum?
When black people discuss gun reform, they seem to do it from a black person perspective. On an issue that seems very one-sided. They use terms like our schools and making references to the relationship between police and our children.
However sadistically speaking it is not a black people issue. At least not in its current narrative. Gun reform for us and our communities is different then it is for whites and their communities. As a black man from Chicago and now living and working in both DC and Baltimore my concern is not gun reform. The three cities I mentioned all have some of the strictest gun laws on the books. Most of the schools in these cities have school police or metal detectors, and some have both. But they also have some of the highest murders rates caused by illegal guns of any of the cities in the nation.
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/national/the-cities-with-the-highest-murder-rates-in-the-us/collection_5a789407-4d43-5403-ad56-7c47880bda8e.html
Since 2001 Chicago alone has had over 7000 gun murders. That is more than the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-37262738/chicago-killings-we-just-want-to-be-out-of-the-hood
Would gun reform stop this? How come we aren’t crying about this? Don’t everybody speak at the same time. But until we address this, I can’t be apart of this current empty liberal conversation on gun reform.
In my opinion, black people must take over this reform conversation. We must place our issues with gun violence at the top of any gun reform bill. Our children aren’t getting there Ak-15 from Walmart, but they still seem to have them.
I also won’t continue to allow the narrative to be painted as a mental illness for white children and black on black crime for ours as “thug’s.” Our children suffer from PSTD as many of them struggle just to keep it together in the middle of real-life war zones. Many of them carry guns for protection and sometimes kill for self-defense. But these conversations are never had, not amongst white liberals or us.
http://www.chicagonow.com/reflections-chicago-life/2017/07/cops-leaving-crates-of-guns-lying-around-you-say/
By the way, I encourage all black people to purchase a gun legally, and you will be amazed at how fast real reform would come.
Now I know this is a much broader issue than guns or black and white, but when we talk about gun reform, we only seem to talk about white gun reform. Why is that?
Final question, where do black kids get all their illegal guns?
The following two links might help answer this question and guess what? Gun reform with its current dialogue wouldn’t do a thing to stop it.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16961146/baltimore-gun-trace-task-force-trial
http://www.chicagonow.com/reflections-chicago-life/2017/07/cops-leaving-crates-of-guns-lying-around-you-say/
By the way, I encourage all black people to purchase a gun legally, and you will be amazed at how fast real reform would come.
