Many bloggers have noticed that most of the anti-gun groups have stayed away from the Ferguson riots. Joan Peterson of Protect Minnesota and the Brady Campaign is not one of those.
It’s easy to see why the antis elected NOT to comment on this topic:
And finally, I can’t not write about what happened in Ferguson, Missouri after the failure of the grand jury to indict a white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, a black unarmed teen-ager. We may disagree about the evidence so far released about how things went down that fateful August day.
What Joan is disagreeing with is HARD evidence. Things like surveillance footage, autopsy reports, medical treatment records, and blood splatter analysis. She chooses to ignore all that for dubious eyewitness reports that match none of the evidence collected at the scene. She chooses to do that because the anti-rights people want common criminals like Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown to be heroes so they can use their deaths for their self-centered political gain.
But there are some facts that are hard to dispute. Young black males are arrested in greater numbers than other young males. There have been more shootings of young black males by police officers than other young males. More black teens died of gunshot injuries than the same population of white teens in 2012, the year of the Sandy Hook shooting. The writer of this article points out the difference in how the media treats the gun deaths of people of color from that of white people. She has a point and the media should examine their own views about racial disparity when writing about violent incidents.
Of course Joan is ignoring the bigger picture, violent crime is DOWN in America while gun ownership and concealed carry is up. It seems that violence in general is a problem within the black population. She of course ignores the big picture for a calculated reason. GUNS ARE NOT THE ISSUE! If guns were the issue we would be seeing an overall rise in violent crime as gun ownership increases. One big issue is gangs, who as a general rule have guns, but not legally so. The antis are never for enforcing the laws on the books, they are for adding new laws. Her proposed solution is to “Protect” Blacks from violence we need to disarm the general population…but the numbers indicate this would only INCREASE violent crime.
Again, she pretends to care about lives, all she cares about are guns. It gets worse:
We have a serious problem in our country with racial disparity when it comes to arrests, convictions, and imprisonments. We have a serious problem with relationships between law enforcement and people of color going back decades in America. We have institutional racism in America that is spilling out in politics, in incidents involving violence, in our social, economic and education systems and in our justice system. The communities of color are hurting in many ways that most of us who are not living in their communities can not possibly understand.
She links this article:
The term “institutional racism” describes societal patterns that have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity.
…Examples:
-Opposing public school funding is not necessarily an act of individual racism; one can certainly oppose public school funding for valid, non-racist reasons. But to the extent that opposing public school funding has a disproportionate and detrimental effect on minority youth, it furthers the agenda of institutional racism.
-Most other positions contrary to the civil rights agenda–opposition to affirmative action, support for racial profiling, and so forth–also have the (often unintended) effect of sustaining institutional racism.
So opposing school funding is racist? Except that school funding has nothing to do with school performance! Throwing money at poor schools doesn’t have any effect in the performance of those schools. We have a word for that in the reality-based world: WASTE!
Also affirmative action possibly (but arguably) made sense when there were huge racial biases in the career fields. Now when you go and see a new doctor are you surprised to see a black person? The same goes for the dude driving a mop in your place of business. Are you surprised if you see a white person? Now the proponents for affirmative action may spin numbers that such-and-such races aren’t represented in such-and-such projected numbers. Still if you work in the medical or scientific field (chosen because that’s where I work) the faces are disproportionately Asian. This has become such a trend in many fields that affirmative action quotas have started treating Asian people as “Whites”. This goes against all the claims of racism in the system, as Asians look different than whites. The issue is cultural, not racial. To somehow claim that somebody is somehow handicapped because of their color is nothing more than racist at it’s heart!
The other problem we have in America is the militarization of our law enforcement not seen in most countries not at war. Since 9-11 that has increased out of fear of being attacked again by extremists. This only serves to increase the tension between citizens and the police. In Ferguson, we saw police outfitted in riot gear and “storm trooper” like uniforms. The rioters last night in Ferguson were wrong in their actions. They were understandably angry and frustrated. Michael Brown’s family called for peaceful protests but that did not happen. Mistakes were made on both sides that led to further looting, rioting, violence, burning and civil unrest. What happened last night is a symbol of the underlying tensions in America about race and also about guns and violence.
And where did the militarized police come from? This is entirely from the action of the anti-gunners. The cops have machine guns, grenade launchers, and military vehicles, stuff that I can’t legally buy. Why? Because they’ve been exempted from every major gun control law ever passed. The anti-gun argument has always been “COPS NEED THESE ITEMS TO DO THEIR JOBS!”, now they’re squealing that cops shouldn’t have these items. Antis caught in a lie again!
As for the Brown family calling for a “Peaceful Protest”, nope:
But more guns is not the answer. Violence causes more violence. And mistrust of those who are different from us spawns suspicion and trouble. Police officers are heavily armed and often face heavily armed citizens in some communities in our country. It’s a vicious circle.
Pack of lies! First up, “Guns are not the answer”?? Tell that to the people who’s businesses were spared because armed people volunteered their time to protect them from the looters! Also “Violence causes more violence”? Can you cite ONE instance where the civilian guards needed to discharge their weapons protecting private property? Catchy phrase, but it just isn’t true.
Also note that the antis claim you don’t NEED a gun because police will protect you. This riot was predicted and prepared for for WEEKS, and yet still buildings burned. Do you think you will fare any better in a one-off crime? The people of Ferguson and everywhere else have no recourse if the police fail to protect them. You need to protect yourself!
Same goes for the cops being heavily armed because the criminals are heavily armed. Sorry, but there are almost no crimes being committed with long guns. Police have the firearms and equipment they do for two reasons #1. They’re the best tools for the job, and the sadder #2 is because they have been authorized to have certain equipment, they elect to acquire that stuff and then work to justify it’s use. It’s really not black and white. I don’t think most towns should have a SWAT team, and I don’t like seeing police officers in military fatigues with full-auto weapons responding to what are routine calls, or running no-knock raids on what are petty drug dealers. Still I think it would be foolish to issue police arbitrarily restricted guns like the general public was saddled with during the federal assault weapons ban.
And interesting that she lied about the Brown family’s requests before the buildings started burning, as well as the reasons for police having certain guns, before she cites a “vicious circle”.
She’s a liar and a panderer, and she does it for her own personal political gain. She’s also sickly racist. You can see why some of the smarter antis stayed away from this topic.
