Posted on 05/08/2003 6:52:39 AM PDT by twas
In case you didn’t know it, while we were watching the war in Iraq, the NAACP was taking care of business, suing gun dealers in order to dramatically slow the carnage in the Black community from the illegal and irresponsible use of guns. But Republicans in Congress are fighting back, using legislation and racism.
African Americans account for 51 percent of gun homicides and there is a well-heeled, illegal sales machine operating in the Black community. It feeds the domestic war over drug sales and turf in many inner cities and it mysteriously goes unabated, while it is common knowledge that these guns are not made in the Black community and are not sold, for the most part, in gun shops that do legitimate commerce.
Recently, a “60 Minutes” television show indicated the U.S. Justice Department could determine, with the help of the Treasury Department’s firearms division, which guns shops sold a disproportionate number of weapons that have turned up in the commission of crimes. It turns out that there is a national database that contains the serial numbers of these weapons, which can be traced back to the manufacturers and, in many cases, to the stores from which they were sold. Why don’t local law enforcement officials have access to this database? It is prohibited from being used by the U.S. attorney general, a big protector of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
This is cold-blooded stuff. Most of us have the movie version of this problem in our heads, where petty drug dealers buy weapons from the neighborhood pawn shop and use them to wipe out their competition. But the truth is often more like the fact that?B> sophisticated weapons are available on a wholesale basis to the leaders of street gangs. In some cases, we are told, availability almost resembles weapons sales made to a small foreign country. That is why it is a problem largely beyond the capacity of local authorities to regulate.
In response to the NAACP’s legal action, Republicans - and some Democrats whose knees shake when the NRA feels threatened - have sponsored bills in both the House and Senate. In the Senate, there is S. 659 and in the House, there is R. 1036; both make it illegal to sue gun manufacturers for the misuse of their product, especially where they do not produce it to be operated safely. That is the standard with regard to every other regulated product on the market.
This amounts to the blatant use of the law, of their majority control of public policy in the Congress, to shield producers of the instruments of death. It is dirty business and it ought to be stopped, yet I hear few elected officials at local levels telling their constituents to fight back.
The Black community needs to fight back because of the racist sentiments held by those who would protect the right of gun manufacturers to flood the Black community, believing that human life is cheap there and that everyone is on drugs. In fact, earlier this month, while H.R. 1036 was being debated on the floor of the House, Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) rose to support it, saying: “My sons are 25 and 30. They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a Black community, you cannot sell a gun to any Black person…”
Immediately, African American Congressman Mel Watt, (D-N.C.), who was managing the opposition to the bill, moved that Cubin retract the comments. She refused and one of her Republican colleagues moved to lay Watt’s motion on the table - in other words, to cancel it. Watt then moved that a recorded vote be taken.
Cubin finally apologized for her remarks, but what was interesting was that her colleagues supported her by a vote of 227 to 195. While the racist statements by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott were played up from one end of the country to another, these statements by a House Republican seem to have escaped most of us, or maybe they are so frequent that most people are now hardened when they occur.
Nevertheless, the NAACP has a point, and so we must fight back by making sure that our representatives are contacted to oppose both S. 659 and H.R. 1036 so that the courts could have a fair shot at the suit without having to consider a ban on the legal action imposed by the Congress and the White House.
I said the White House because it is expected that George Bush would sign such legislation, locking in the use of weapons of mass destruction in inner-city neighborhoods while seeking to prevent them from being used in Iraq. If more than 15,000 Black people are killed every year by guns, I would say that the process is slower, but the result is pretty much the same.
From Sacramento... how unsurprising. They really should read through the 9th Circuit Judges' dissenting opinions from the Silviera (sp?) RKBA decision yesterday. One of the judges (I forget which) pointed out that gun control was used to control blacks during Reconstruction (or words to that effect). The NAACP ignores that fact completely, demands more gun control and slaps the "racist" label on anyone against who stands against such gun control.
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So you would deny me the right of owning a gun just to get your jollies? Feh....
That makes you no better than the rest of the gun grabbers. You want some extra starch for that sheet?
"Flood the black community" with means to protect itself? Gee, I guess this guy doesn't know that a lot of white communities have lots of guns (and live peacefully).
That makes you no better than the rest of the gun grabbers. You want some extra starch for that sheet?
I'd object to them actually doing it, but maybe just suggesting it would have a positive effect. Then maybe to be contrary (as Americans tend to be), more blacks would take up private arms while the NAACP gets slapped.
I'd think even the NAACP would be offended by the suggestion that their argument be followed up on in this manner.
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