The Las Vegas Sun, an unashamedly anti-gun Leftist publication, urged Clark County residents to contact their elected officials about “gun violence” in the valley. Far from the mark as usual, The Sun displays the typical failure to understand or admit the truth behind the cause and nature of “gun violence.” Just like CNN, the Sun is guilty of publishing “fake news.” In trying to push a narrative about accidental gun deaths and injuries to children, they lead of with stories that all involve criminal violence.
Some background information on the heartrending stories they lead off with. Infant Marcus Thomas Jr. was killed in a targeted shooting when the suspect(s) fired at his parents’ car, presumably trying to kill his father, and hit the child. Police have not confirmed if it was gang related. Thomas and his LaSharell Pope are black and live in a predominately black area (according to the Racial Dot Map). Chances are, it was gang-related, but the Review-Journal’s reporters never bothered to follow-up on the investigation, or so I could tell.
Tiara Lucas’s 4 month old was shot in the hand by a stray bullet, fired east of the Strip. Coincidentally, Lucas is also black, but that is likely incidental. Another child and presumably its father were shot during an argument at another apartment complex. Further details are unknown and I will not speculate on race. It is safe to say that living in a predominately non-white community with a high rate of violence is dangerous. It’s also safe to say that gang and drug violence plagues the black community, something that today’s “journalists” seem to leave out of their reports and never follow-up on.
The Sun quotes a study from the journal Pediatrics which states that the third-leading cause of death for children are guns, for a total of 1,300 killed. The Sun spins this as unintentional or accidental death by citing disease and accidents after and the above stories about stray bullets and cross fire when the study figures are nearly all homicides. The manipulation is so great that it meets the definition of a lie; an untrue statement that is intended to deceive.
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| Juvenile homicides, 2014. CDC WISQARS |
The “truth” of the statement depends on the definition of “children.” The word “child” in relation to age typically does not include teenagers. The study counted those under 18, as this meant they could count teenagers, which comprised 92% of deaths. Only about 7% were under age 12 and a total of 78 of the 1,300 cited deaths were actual accidents. A CDC study from 2015 lists accidental death by gun for minors as the tenth leading cause (source).
Using 2014 data, 1,330 persons under 18 died via gun (all intents), using CDC WISQARS data, the same source data as the Pediatrics study. 791 deaths were homicides (including accidents) and 566 were suicides. White juveniles commit suicide via gun by a factor of nearly ten times greater than black juveniles, but black juveniles are killed in homicides 60% more than whites. If we exclude Hispanics from whites, that rate increases to four times more dead African-Americans than non-Hispanic Caucasians. Hispanic juveniles die in homicides in slightly higher rates, at about two-thirds less than African-Americans.
The Sun blames the “slaughter” on the NRA, the same NRA who has a child-gun safety program and teachers people how to use guns safely. Let’s take a look at killing and see who is actually responsible for the slaughter. Remember, this is all fact, it is not racist.
About 90% of black homicide victims of all ages are killed by black perpetrators. Out of all 1,488 juveniles killed by homicide (all means) in 2014, 897 or 60% were black. 275 or 18% were non-Hispanic white and 279 or also 18% were non-white Hispanic. Non-Hispanic whites compose 63% of the US Population, Hispanics compose 8.1%, and non-Hispanic blacks 12%. White Hispanics compose about 50% of all Hispanics. What does this tell us? We have a racially disproportionate rate of killing in the United States. 63% of the population is only responsible for less than a fifth of all juvenile homicides, while 20% of the population is responsible for 78% percent of killings.
The slaughter is the responsibility of cultures that murder each other with abandon. Some will now accuse me of racism, but the uncomfortable fact that everyone seems to want to ignore is that murder in America today is disproportionately committed by and to members of minority communities. The problem is with a rotten culture, infested with gangs, drugs, and without stable families. This isn’t the first time America has had a problem with a violent culture; in the past, whites were responsible, but different reasons.
The South and Old West in the 1800s had statistically higher rate of homicide than northern states. Actual criminal violence, aside from the notorious gangs and robberies, was much lower than today’s urban cities. If you behaved yourself and kept good company, you would be fine. Random crime like we see today was much more rare, but if you were cantankerous, rude, and hung around a bar with a bunch of men who thought it was okay to kill each other if the hate was deep enough, you might be in trouble.
The problem was the culture. Society had a laid back attitude towards violence. The old dueling culture lead to killing over matters of honor being socially acceptable. What we would call voluntary manslaughter today, killing in the heat of passion, was not considered that bad if the other guy “had it coming.” This lead to our concealed carry laws and likely to increased standards for justifiable homicide.
At some point, people cried out that they had had enough killing and things changed. The problem was never the gun, it was a culture that practically condoned murder, though guns were blamed. Now we rigorously prosecute and convict (if not execute), murderers. Modern juries don't excuse gang killers simply because the victim was an equally unsympathetic rival gang member.
Contemporary America does not have a gun problem; what America has is a cultural problem. America has failed the inner city communities and the black community in particular. We have failed the young men on the street leaving their families to pay the price of heartbreak.
If the majority of murders are committed by young, black males, how can we expect that same demographic to disapprove of killing each other? Inner city violence will not change until the culture changes. I have to question if it wants to when I hear the proliferation of rap and R&B music that praises money, sex, materialism, and violence. At some point, and maybe these last 20 years of relative peace portend something, minorities will get sick of the violence amongst themselves and stop it.
We cannot dismiss the black and minority communities, which is precisely what blaming the gun does. Everyone regardless of race deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness too. We cannot address a problem if we are too afraid of being called racist to name it, but that’s exactly what the media and politicians do while hearts break in the inner city. Leftists broke the black community and continue to disappoint the Hispanic community. So let’s lay the blame where it belongs; liberal politics.
The Sun criticizes the NRA for “treating any attempt to deal with gun violence like an existential threat to Americans’ freedom.” That’s because it is. Guns are apparently the only constitutional right that the media feels it’s okay to target for destruction. CNN is reacting that every presidential tweet about it is an existential threat. Perhaps if a campaign began to permit suing the news media for fraud for publishing such slanted and spun editorials like this the Sun would be screaming about respecting the First Amendment.
Leftists and liberal rags like the Sun perversely blame anything and everything except the actual problem. These denials are responsible for the continual disappointment to a population that has long been discriminated against, kept in poverty, and systematically subjected to violence. The Sun and whatever liberal shill wrote this fetid piece of drivel has once again stooped to exploit the tragic plight of minorities to further the Leftist objective of subjecting all to tyranny.
The person that shot tiaras baby was white . Dumbass ! So her being black is irrelevant . Tf was your point again
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