While not discounting all of the socioeconomic elements of crime, it's almost, ALMOST like we should make it a little more difficult to obtain deadly weapons in this country.
You assume these weapons were obtained legally by persons legally able to purchase them?
Statistically, probably not. I think it’s something like less than 15% of gun violence is committed by the legal owners of said firearms. But it’s also far too easy to get your hands on weapons illegally in this country. Answer to me is less about repealing the 2nd amendment, and more about fully vetting legal buyers and penalizing the shit out of illegal gun ownership, irresponsible gun ownership and illicit weapon sales. Can’t ban alcohol to help stop DUIs, but you can make the consequences of driving under the influence (or selling to minors, for example) so prohibitive that it deters people from doing it.
13 people shot by bullets in Jacksonville in one week certainly points to a problem. No shortage of different, valid ways to help combat it.
I see recurring themes in all of these instances, unfortunately.
How are you going to balance the argument against mass incarceration when it results in a much higher percentage of black men in prison with your desire for greatly increased penalties for illegal gun ownership if caught? You won't be able to have both arguments work in one direction.
Here's the solution and it isn't easy or pretty, or politically correct, but I believe it's correct.
Unwritten 1. God God God...we have abandoned Him and look at the results. He has teachings in sacred scripture that are supposed to guide our lives, and so it's not just about praise and worship music on an occasional Sunday, He has the guidebook for life worth living. We've gone full blown apostasy in our western civilization though, and the inner cities are so far gone in this regard it's just hard to watch.
1. Education reform so that children are getting educated, for real for real. Right now most kids coming out of public schools, particularly inner city schools, don't know how to read, write, perform arithmetic, etc and they've all been taught some things that just aren't good for societal cohesion. Almost like no education at all would honestly be better, but we need to fix this. The teachers' unions are disastrous, and there is no longer any accountability for schools.
2. Personal accountability and a cultural change in the cities. If I were being honest with my thoughts, this would be #1. I see and bear witness to plenty of people taking personal responsibility for matters into their own hands (including their children's schooling as I know plenty who are homeschooling now and making sacrifices to do so), and anyone can do the same. Inner city culture is also just rotten to the core (just look at rap music, and now other music too, it's just so rotten). Unfortunately we can all witness some challenging parenting out in public and it's not something easy to ignore. If we never call it out, it will never get fixed, and a lot of this is due to bad culture and this paralysis about discussing it because you're deemed racist if you do. That trick doesn't work on me anymore.
One difference between say the Asian cultures and other cultures in inner cities is priorities - Asians really value their education and are willing to make lemonade out of lemon schools, whites to a lesser degree, and blacks and Hispanics to a much lesser degree. I think that's a cultural thing...it's a stupid "rule" that we can't say that. I've met Asians coming out of bad inner city schools and with language barriers who made it to top tier universities (even if they had to transfer in sophomore or junior year) purely on merit. I think with that going on, these excuses made for other groups don't work. It's a cultural thing.
3. ENFORCE THE LAWS ALREADY ON THE BOOKS and actually penalize people according to the law. There are tons of laws on the books already regulating guns, ownership, use, etc. Law-abiding gun owners are committing near 0% of the gun related crime in this country and you can look that up.
Finally, yes crime is on the rise here and there and during moments in time, but it is concentrated. There are whole swaths of Jax where you can live and work and never encounter crime or see evidence of it. It's an inner city, primarily black issue. And it's never going to be fixed until people are honest about it. My $0.02
