OPINION:
President Joe Biden, on the anniversary of the horrible tragedy called the Parkland school shootings, promised his administration would forever protect innocent Americans from similarly senseless crimes and soon enough, with Democrats holding majorities in both House and Senate, pass “commonsense gun law reforms.”
What he means by that, of course, is the end of the Second Amendment as we know it.
“This administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” Biden said.
“We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer,” Biden said.
“Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all guns sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden said.
These are the lies of the left.
The truth, in rapid-fire fashion, is this: America’s “epidemic” of gun violence is not in the schools, but rather in the streets — in the gang-banging, drug-infested streets of mostly Democrat-controlled communities. And if Biden and Democrats really wanted to stem the tide of gun-related violence with a “commonsense” approach, they’d first go after the guns being carted by lawbreakers — i.e., gang-bangers and drug-dealing scum — and not those carried by legal owners.
It’s not the Second Amendment to blame for America’s gun-related crimes and deaths.
It’s the culture.
Or, more to the point, it’s the blind eyes the Democrats turn to the lawbreakers, so as not to rock politically incorrect boats — lawbreakers who then shoot up the culture.
“[H]omicides in major cities including Baltimore are not race neutral,” wrote John Hudgins, an associate professor of sociology at Coppin State University, in an April 2020, Baltimore Sun piece. “Of the more than three hundred people killed in the streets of Baltimore last year, just about all of them were African Americans. The shooters (killers) were most likely black as well.”
Hudgins went on to write that stop-and-frisk and mass incarcerations are civil rights’ hot points — but commonsense controls that recognize the real sources of gun violence are nonetheless needed.
Commonsense controls that “target illegal weapons,” for instance, he said.
His viewpoint coincides with statistics from The Trace that found 3,010 people in 2020 were injured and killed in mass shootings — the “disproportionate share” of which “struck black neighborhoods.” Why is this?
It’s certainly not because of a lack of laws.
After all, it’s already illegal to shoot to kill; it’s already illegal to commit crimes with firearms. So the problem, to paraphrase Bill Clinton on the economy, is the culture, stupid.
In 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau found that while the percentage of White children under the age of 18 who lived with both parents was 74.3%, the percent of black minors living with both parents was 38.7%.
The nonprofit Kids Count reported similarly for 2019 — that roughly 64%, or two-thirds, of minor-aged Blacks were raised in single-parent homes. Kids Count also reported 42% of Hispanics in 2019 were raised in single-parent homes, compared to only 24% of Whites. With 64% of all Black youth and 42% of all Hispanic youth in the country being raised by single mothers — single mothers who have to work, who have to work more than one job, who aren’t as attentive to the raising of their children as they might be with a father in the home — it’s no wonder the Black communities are breeding grounds for gangs. It’s no wonder Hispanic communities face the same issues.
In 1996, the National Youth Gang Survey found the ethnic backgrounds of gang members in America were as follows: 44% Hispanic, 35% Black, 14% White, and 7% Asian or other. And the ages of these gang members? As the National Gang Center reported, between 1996 and 2011, between 35% and 50% of America’s gang members younger than 18 years old.
These are not shocking statistics.
These are well known, well reported, well documented.
It’s like the open secret of America’s crime rate — the vastly ignored truths of America’s gun crimes.
So “commonsense gun law reforms,” as put forth by Biden and the Democrats? Seriously. There’s nothing commonsense about it.
If Democrats truly wanted to address gun violence in America, they would address the problems of those who choose guns and violence as viable ways of life. They wouldn’t seek to regulate the ones who don’t need regulation in the first place.
They wouldn’t seek to needlessly restrict Second Amendment rights — to needlessly claim the God-given right to self-defend. There’s nothing commonsense about that at all.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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