“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Unfortunately, in this day and age, and in this culture, people are killing people with guns. I’m not one of those who takes a literal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. I wor
I recall by studying my history that governments, including the U.S. government, way back in 1791 forbade Black people (free and slave) from owning guns, or any weapons well into the 20th century.
When they couldn’t get away with laws banning Black ownership of guns, they instead passed laws that forced Blacks to pay more for owner-ship. I remember a law that forbade Blacks from owning dogs (white folks considered a Black man with a dog an armed Black man.)
So, I worry when people start talking about gun ownership and specifically target certain communities. I was sympathetic to the National Rifle Association’s support of public housing residents who were forbidden to own guns.
It was Bill Clinton who sought a law prohibiting all federal public housing residents from owning a gun, and in Chicago, Operation Clean Sweep was designed to get guns, and illegal narcotics, out of Chicago Housing Authority residences.
But while I am sympathetic, we have to do something to get guns out of the community, or there will be no community. Somewhere, we have to stop, and give less consideration to the rights of gun owners and more consideration to the rights of gun victims.
The Constitution means little at a funeral. It has been pointed out that there are no gun manufacturers in Black neighborhoods. The guns mysteriously find their way into Chicago’s Black neighborhoods even though they are illegal in the city. Guns find their way into the hands of adolescents, and young adults and even a couple of toddlers.
While they don’t discriminate in whom they kill, there seems to be some discrimination involved in who gets them, and who they are aimed at. That’s why 36 Chicago Public School students lost their lives last year. They were shot and killed, and the psych-ological trauma harms everyone they knew, and everyone who knew them, and everyone who found out they were shot. It sends the message that the schools are not safe, even though few of the shootings took place at school.
It sends the message to teachers that they aren’t safe, so some of them opt to teach somewhere else because they do have choice. Several recent horrific murders have rekindled the notion that death by firearm is occurring much too often and we have to do something about it. Somehow, death by firearm is now considered normal; its occurrence so commonplace that no one sits up and notices.
And then, a gunman coldly shoots six innocent women in the head in a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, and walks out the front door. The death of five of the women %uFFFD Rhoda McFarland, Connie Woolfolk, Jennifer L. Bishop, Sarah Szafranski and Carrie Hudek Chiuso %uFFFD has shocked many people because of the brutality of the crime and the utter senselessness. But some, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, have pegged it as yet another example of what happens when guns get into the wrong hands.
I am still wary about government taking guns away from lawabiding citizens. I recognize that some people feel safer with a gun in the house, even though it is my personal belief that a gun in the house makes the house less safe. I am not against gun ownership. I am definitely in favor of responsible gun ownership.
With over 200 million firearms already in the U.S., it means a lot of people have several guns, and with the number of deaths by firearm in the Black community, it seems that a lot of irresponsible people are getting their hands on guns. No, it is not the gun. Guns are not evil, but the sole purpose of a handgun is to kill. Anyone who owns one knows that the reason for owning it is that it may eventually be used.
So we have millions of potential deaths just waiting to happen, and unfortunately, too many of them happen to people who look like me. The availability of firearms is fueling an epidemic of death in the Black community and in society, as a whole.
I don’t want to see another death at the hands of Blacks. Guns are finding their way into hands that before would be balled into fists or would be wielding a knife. That escalation has meant that lives are lost, instead of a lifelong scar, or bruises or a severe headache from a severe butt whuppin’. Guns don’t leave bruises or headaches. They leave survivors and heartache.
______ Copyright 2008 Chicago Defender. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
About Post Author
