Posted on 05/08/2008 7:19:21 AM PDT by NewJerseyJoe
About 90 percent of the people shot in the city last year were African-American. While figures are unavailable, it is assumed by most that close to 100 percent of the perpetrators of these shootings were African-American.
Almost all the firearms used in these shootings were obtained, possessed and carried illegally by those who perpetrated the shootings. If, as is constantly claimed, we MUST DO SOMETHING to stop this violence, then why not ban African-American residents of the city from owning handguns?
The answer is that that is patently unfair and discriminatory. To judge an entire group as a problem and punish all members of that group, irrespective of their individual actions, is unconscionable.
Yet, it's deemed perfectly acceptable to discriminate against one particular group - gun owners.
Let's just tell the truth. The instant Mayor Nutter gets the right to pass gun laws for Philly, it will become a practical impossibility to own a handgun or any other weapon the city deems "inappropriate."
I've done nothing wrong, but my rights are to be removed step-by-step because others - entirely outside the law - are using guns feloniously. How is this any less outrageous a suggestion than that black people shouldn't be allowed to have guns?
J.F. Wolfington, Philadelphia
Excellent argument. I couldn’t agree more.
I find it perversly interesting that so many major cities which have strict gun controls have large Black populations and Black Mayors/City Councils and are one party, (Democrat) cities.
I think one reason why many think it’s OK to discriminate against gun owners, is that they choose to be gun owners, while humans do not have a choice in their ethnicity.
Humans also have the capacity to decide whether to behave in a civil manner or not. Clearly, not all humans are up to the task.
I agree. I was responding to the question about discrimination against groups.
“while humans do not have a choice in their ethnicity.”
Yes they can... since we have “choice” in this country, they can choose “none of the the above”.
??? Choice in our parents?
Michael Jackson chose his color :)
“??? Choice in our parents?”
No, the parents choice not to have the offspring at all...
If the weapons used were obtained illegally, what good would another law do?
We cannot stop crime by creating new laws. We must eliminate unwarranted and unnecessary laws, pare down the books, and use the remaining laws to their fullest.
Drug lords and transporters should not go to jail, they should die. Drug users should he held until clean, only, and then be put under the direction of a drug enforcement unit to correct their lives.
Guns are not the problem here, wasted useless lives are. These people need a feeling of self worth, without fear, and the ability to trust, not hate, one another.
>>
I think one reason why many think it’s OK to discriminate against gun owners, is that they choose to be gun owners, while humans do not have a choice in their ethnicity.
<<
In allowing this argument we allow that human rights can be different depending upon ethnic or other factors. Of course that is sophistry, for all humans have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, there is a whole spectrum of rights we retain only some of which were enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
I may not have a choice over my skin color, but for example, I have a right to express my opinion, which I have full control over, and which does not depend on my appearance. When I don’t express myself, it does not diminish my right to do so when I please.
Likewise, I have the right to self defense, and the right to defend my family and community. To deny me the right to own and use the means to effect that right would be like saying I have the right to a free press, but the ownership and use of equipment to print newspapers is only to be granted to a limited number of specially trained government employees.
>>
If the weapons used were obtained illegally, what good would another law do?
<<
We would then fall back to relying on the laws against murder and assault to stop these crimes.
Dayum!
That's nothing new, certainly not to me and many long time residents of Philadelphia, and has been going on at least since the late fifties. It won't be changing there for years to come and will continue to get worse. Philly is and has been for many years now, a lost cause.
Bump.
Skin color is just a correlation to the real problem - CULTURE.
You can choose to change your value system.
Undeniable truth about liberalism, #1: Liberalism is about using force to make the innocent pay for the consequences of the guilty's choices.
That’s what you meant by ‘none of the above’?
I understand all that, I was just responding to paragraph 4.
Bump.
Are pigs starting to fly? Philly Daily News prints a honest summation of the Nutteryness of the Mayor’s Office? And troglodyte DA Abrahms balked in using their illegal laws? Maybe. ... ... Maybe.
Actually, bud, I CHOOSE to defend my family, my life, and my way of life with the most expedient object ever invented. The firearm is a TOOL, nothing more. It is neither good nor evil; the person behind it has the CHOICE to act in a good or evil capacity.
Mayor Thugnutter and his fascist flunkie Police Chief Thugramsey and the other rejects on City Council saw fit to try to pass 5 gun laws (one of which is a LAUNDRY LIST of so-called “assault rifles” which suspiciously resembles the list currently in force in New Jersey) win direct defiance to the law of the State, as well as in defiance of the US Constitution.
Why are they not being frog-marched off to jail by PA State Police and US Marshalls for blatantly defying the law, as You or I would be if WE defied the “law” so publicly and openly?
This is what happens when DemComs get control of authority.
Black citizens have the right to defend themselves too; what they need to do is self-police the trash elements in their community an stop electing Thugs to office. When you see young thugs walking around with “Stop Snitching” T-shirts on, there is a REAL problem.
NO ONE is taking away MY ability to defend my family, my neighborhood, my LIFE, from these predatory thugs. Be they governmental predatory thugs or ghetto gangbangers.
People DIED for this right.
Did I even mention anything about what you are talking about?
Did you even read #s 4, 7 & 21?
Yes...when you said “people choose to be gun owners..”
Quite frankly, with the Philadelphia Daily News being the toilet-paper DemCom propaganda rag that it is, I was surprised as hell that they printed ANYTHING remotely pro-gun. Especially after turning to their full-page spread in the same issue showing the “deadly, semi-automatic SKS assault rifle” that the dirtbag thugs used to kill the cop.
Mayor Thugnutter has his bloody shirt to wave now. Convenient timing for him and his ilk.
Would it have made a difference if they used a Winchester .30-30 or a shotgun? Same result - dead cop.
A Remington rifle in the 740 or 760 family would have been more deadly than this SKS scout rifle (This was NOT an assault rifle). And the 740s/760s have a long tradition as a hunting arm.
Did you read my entire statement? Taking things out of context in order to rant at someone, is disingenuous at the least.
They got the type of firearm right this time?
Not the point - the SKS is “evil”, it’s “deadly”, it “can cut a cow in half”, it’s “not useful for hunting”, and “why should anyone want to own one of these weapons of destruction”...
Blah blah blah. ANY gunnie knows what the SKS is and isn’t. Ted Nugent was on the radio in Philly a few mornings back, and even said that the .30-30 was far deadlier than the SKS.
Doesn’t matter. The Philly Daily Toilet News rag showed a folding stock, banana-mag equipped SKS rifle that faintly resembles the ULTIMATE evil rifle, the AK47, and THAT’s what the agenda-driven will focus on to terrify the ignorant.
WE all know better out here; its the uninformed that we have to convince, and the lefties OWN the media.
Once again - this all goes back to the Mayors Against Guns meeting some time back. The have their bloody shirt now.
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