Jesse Jackson at his best - the spinning never stops.

Last night Chicago seen its 500th homicide for 2012, its highest total since 2008 and up from 435 last year according to the Associated Press. Out of these homicides 87.5% are via the gun which i find curious because Chicago, Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

After all this is a place where you can own a handgun (1) but it has to be in your home. It has to be broken down when transported (forget the right to carry) yet even after the modification of its laws in 2010 via the Supreme Court the murder rate is on the rise. Before 2010 it was illegal to own a handgun period in Chicago and the murder rates were through the roof. We are seeing the murder rates back at that level despite the fact that bill in 2010 was aimed at encouraging self defense allowing the right to own a firearm in your home, how so?

Simply put, the bad guys don't live in your home. They are out on the street or in the alleys, where its illegal to carry a weapon. Imagine that, a criminal not minding his local authorities and respecting its laws... why the good citizen does, unarmed.

This morning "Reverend" Jessie Jackson was on CNN discussing the murder rate in Chicago, his hometown. Now normally, when he opens his mouth, hes on the offensive, spitting out venom, bigotry and lies but here the Rev was on the defensive as he tried to make sense of hate crime rates in areas with strict gun laws. When he was asked why Chicago, despite her tough laws, still have exorbitantly high murder rates his first response:

“I think about Newtown, for example, they have three or four gun ranges. There are no gun ranges in Chicago”

Now, he also addressed socioeconomic reasons, and while those are contributing factors for the high murder rates, it doesn’t change the fact that gun laws restricting law abiding citizens to carry them only create more gun deaths. When asked again the same question regarding the gun laws on the books that don’t work, Jackson replied:

 “The guns are not coming from Chicago”

Well pull me up a chair, good Rev. So you are actually acknowledging that even despite strict laws severely restricting gun ownership and forbidding the right to carry; weapons are flowing into Chicago beyond the city limits resulting in spiked homicide rates? But i thought they were illegal, how can this happen? Where have we seen this before? Sounds a lot like the Federal governments "war" on drugs, doesn't it? As I asked yesterday, how is that working out?

Prohibition doesn't work because it does nothing to address why people need or want things others feel is too dangerous or destructive to own. Its simply one person (in a form of a bureaucracy) telling another person they know better than they do. It not only infringes on freedom of choice, prohibition also dissolves the natural existing relationship between supply and demand by simply chocking off supply. Again, nothing is done about the demand. This is how people like Al Capone became legends.

Now, if I could just take a minute to clear up one tidbit of misinformation courtesy of "Revered" Jackson. I did a quick search and found at least three gun ranges in the Chicago area. Remember, when Chicago City Council voted on the new ordinance back in 2010 after they were neutered by the Supreme Court, one of the requirements before owning a firearm is:

One hour on the range and four hours of training in the classroom

Maybe, someone would be kind enough to point out to Reverend Jackson the location of these firing ranges. But, he doesn’t need it. Why would he? He has bodyguards. Funny isn’t it? Kind of like the irony of the Pope Mobile. Where’s the faith Reverend?

Drag the waters some more...

Well, it’s been exactly two weeks since the senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I said to myself as that day unfolded, I would not be a part of the problem anymore. Regardless of how small my voice may be, regardless of how much impact media has or has not on events such as this... I decided that day, no mas.

As a fellow human, you cannot grasp the horror those kids and teachers faced on that morning. As a father, I will not even allow myself to even attempt to fathom the emotion of the loss of a child, sitting innocently in a kindergarten class room, counting down the days to Christmas. My heart truly goes out to those families involved. Only a small percentage of us have to bury our own children and for these families to have to do it because of something like this, is truly unspeakable, so I won’t even waste my words to do so any longer.

As soon as this happened everyone (and rightfully so) are looking for answers. Its human nature, we are creatures so dependent on emotion. However, with human nature and emotion come mistakes. The media fans the flames with its inaccurate reporting, hyperbole and this desire to beat the other guy to the punch. It wasn’t even 15 minutes into the breaking news report, not even into the three minutes of rolling ads for boner pills, Forever Lazy's and Pepsi commercials before we seen the graphics up.

Straddled across the screen like some stripper who is about to perform her 17th lap dance of the night (with 24 more to go) the slogan and graphic were dawned. "Tragedy in Newtown" - "Tragedy in Sandy Hook" - "Connecticut school massacre" etc etc etc. Hurricanes, school shootings, dead celebrities, Presidential speeches, court verdicts... yhea, we got a graphic for that.

Who can get there first? Who can take the best photos of the kids coming out, who can get the most exclusive interview with the person closest to the massacre? Get the Aunt of a dead teacher... or how about the step-mother of a child? A survivor?? Now, that is a real prize.

From media sensationalizing comes the blame game. Blame the guns (as if you need a link or a cite for this). Blame the games and the movies. Blame the mental health community or the lack thereof. Blame the devil. Blame Marylin Manson. Oh, wait I'm getting ahead of myself. Nobody listens to Manson' anymore... gonna have to find a new whipping boy in music I suppose. Can we use Eminem?  Even the conspiracy crowd has officially claimed the attack never happened. In fact "them" are said to be all in bed together to take over the world and all of the dead must be living happily ever after at the north pole. Lots of blame - but no solutions.

The truth of the matter will not require a retro fit band-aide that we as Americans like to use for everything. The wound is much larger than that but yet so small at the same time. That's because the wound is us. We as a people are the problem. Individual responsibility is the best cure for any problem we might encounter from mounting fiscal national debt to education failures in our schools to school shootings.

Individual responsibility is hard in this case because we depend on the schools to keep our children safe. And unless your child just so happens to be attending the one school  of a sitting Presidents children, no school is safe from this type of act, as it is, right now.

But do we have to settle for how things are right now? Or should we demand more? Buzzing people in and out of locked schools is a nice idea, but all someone has to do is smash the doors or windows to gain access to hundreds if not thousands of unarmed innocent people. That’s how these turn into bloody massacres. If we can’t turn back the hands of time and (un) invent the gun, the only solution is to fight fire with fire. And do it in every school in America. It’s done in many inner cities already and it’s obviously done for the President. If it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander.
 
This however isn’t the topic for those in mass media; instead their focus seems to be centered on the weapons and motives of past killers instead of focusing on protecting future victims. Making guns illegal in any way shape or form will not keep guns out of criminal’s hands. Don't believe me? Tell me.... how’s that "war" on drugs working out for you? A law or ban or restriction only creates a bigger black market and thus only supports more crime and senseless deaths. This is simply supply and demand.  Yet all we hear is  #guncontrolnow. Puzzling, it is, the inability for so many to not grasp simplistic approaches like cause and effect.

Switzerland has some of the highest gun ownership in the world with 45.7 guns per 100 residents yet their gun related crimes are so low they don't even keep records according to a piece written in the BBC last year. And many of these guns are fully automatic military grade rifles (M-57 Assault rifle pictured below). Those type of weapons are already ILLEGAL here and were not used in this case... yet we have a gun problem, and the Swiss do not?

Again, restricting certain guns or outlawing guns all together even will not stop senseless gun violence or school shootings. Only a gun can stop a gun. Kids in a school are locked up sitting ducks, thus security in the form of a regular beat cop should be in place at every school in the country. We put a man on the moon, invented the automobile, invented the computer... yet we cannot protect our children while at school getting their shitty education? And for those of you who say: "what are we supposed to do, put cops in the mall as well"?

The answer is simply, no. Because if we focus on individual responsibility (including but not limited to) on things like more concealed weapons permits for those that qualify; the coverage and overlap would police itself. If you put a gun in every school office in the country it would save more lives than it would ever take by just their presence alone. Not to mention, probably foil many attacks from happening in the first place. As time goes on, we are seeing battle lines drawn between people who want choice and freedom while others want to be directed and told what to think, what to believe and when to do it. Lets not let the second amendment be another victim when in reality its the only solution. We have too many Indians, we need more chiefs.

'If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun he and Kassandra Perkins would both be alive today."

With last weeks murder/suicide of Kansas City Chief Jovan Blecher and girlfriend Kassandra Perkins, people from all walks of life often found themselves involved in this discussion in some way shape or form. While many of the details and motives remain a mystery, one thing remains clear - guns, do not kill people, people kill people. Many in the last week that have used this tragedy as a vehicle for their own agenda regarding gun laws and gun control and to my surprise it wasnt just the usual suspects on the "left". NBC's Bob Costas used the quote in the title to lead into his viewpoints of gun ownership in the country in an NFL halftime segment in last weeks Sunday night broadcast; 24 hours after the tragedy occurred. 

Agree or disagree with Costas using a sporting event to tout his political beliefs isnt the issue i have. Anyone familiar with sports knows Costas isnt one that hates the sound of his own voice. So if anyone in sports would be ignorant or arrogant enough to wade into such a controversial issue as gun control; Costas would be the man for the job. My issue isnt with him doing so from a network that is pretty decidedly liberal when it comes to their news, after-all "Lean Forward" is not just a slogan - as a verb it quite literally means to "Progress" and "Progressive" is the new word for Liberal... thus there is no hiding that networks news affiliation.

No, my issue lies squarely on the back of this notion that taking guns out of the hands of individuals will have some type of magical impact on stopping murders. The liberal mind that is hell bent on gun control and this cockamamie idea that this tragic murder could have been prevented if Belcher did not own a firearm is absurd and its a mindset closer related to the book & movie: Minority Report, as opposed to reasoning and logic.

Jovan Belcher wasn't a felon, he wasn't known to be mentally unstable nor did he even have a record. There was nothing that could have been done to keep Mr. Belcher from owning a legal firearm and obviously there is nothing that could have been done to keep him from owning one illegally either. So the issue isnt gun control or tighter restrictions; it is obviously gun ownership... period. That is not only an attack on the 2nd amendment its also a mistake on those that advocate such; as its the road to tyranny. Taking guns out of the hands of the public will not reduce crime, if anything, it will only create more of it and a bigger black market that already exists to support it. Dont believe me, ask the government how the war on drugs is going? How did the prohibition of alcohol work out?


According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in a report from the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from -

• a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
• a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
• family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%

Some nut can get a gun legally or illegally and nothing will stop him from executing his despicable act before it happens. Some law abiding citizen can become emotional and beat his or her significant other with a bat or use a knife or shoot them with a gun and nothing will change that, the means that are used are of ill consequence. Crimes of passion and fits of rage are human problems, its not the choice of the instrument used to carry it out that's at fault. Trying to isolate one weapon as a problem where 99% of its owners never have to use it is just plain irresponsible. Bottom line: its just not possible in an open and free society to protect everybody from themselves.  

You want to stamp out gun violence? Allow and encourage more people to carry one. Every time there is a tragedy concerning gun violence the knee jerk reaction is the guns and the access are the blame and it couldnt be any further from the truth. The reason that one gun in a crowd of people can do so much damage is that not enough law abiding citizens carry a weapon. An overwhelming majority of gun related deaths are involving one person being armed and another person not being armed. How do you make these situation less damaging? Again... allow and encourage more people to carry a firearm.

If Mr Belcher didnt own a firearm would it have prevented her death? No idea, who knows what he may have picked up or did to her with his hands... and NFL linebacker doesnt need a gun to cause bodily harm to a women. If she had been carrying would this have prevented the death of Kassandra Perkins? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is assured... it would at least bettered her odds, without question. And that is the point, its basic mathematics... guns are the great equalizer and ill use this Ronald Regan quote to kill (pardon the pun) two birds with one stone:

"The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all."