“OVER the past two decades, the majority of Americans in a country deeply divided over gun control have coalesced behind a single proposition: The sale of assault weapons should be banned.

That idea was one of the pillars of the Obama administration’s plan to curb gun violence, and it remains popular with the public. In a poll last December, 59 percent of likely voters said they favor a ban.

But in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.

It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.”

via The Assault Weapon Myth – NYTimes.com.

 

I was a senior in high school when the original Clinton crime bill and “Assault Weapons Ban” was steamrolled through Congress and ultimately signed into law. The fact handguns were used in the vast majority of homicides and that black men (many of them my age at the time) were most likely to be both victims and perpetrators was known then. But the media and liberal politicians made the case that it was “evil assault weapons” that were the problem. That was twenty years ago as of this writing. I even made a presentation on that fact in one of my classes that year.

Then, as is the case now, the issue wasn’t guns or gun control. In play, was a broader range of much bigger social and economic issues having little to do with guns or gun control. But, no one wanted to hear that then. And they sure as heck don’t want to hear it now. Why? Because there are no quick solutions that one can hang their hat on within the confines of a typical presidential or congressional election cycle. There’s no real solution that will please the mob in the short term. And ultimately, because the plan then, as it is now, is to marginalize guns and gun owners, one sub group at a time. If you can do that, it’s easy enough to call for compromise, common sense, and reasonable regulation eliminating the right to bear arms all together through attrition over time. Make no mistake, that has been the end game goal all along. The gang and drug related violence and death that disproportionately impact black males only serve to bolster that goal by fanning the fears of conservatives and liberals alike. Again, these are facts that have been known for over thirty years but rarely reported on by the mainstream media. That is, until now.

I don’t know if the New York Times is under new management/ownership but, call me shocked to have seen a truthful article on guns pubished in their website today. It is anything but a “pro gun” article but, it is remarkably free of the typical anti-gun push the NYTimes and other mainstream media publications have come to be known for. It’s the first time I’ve seen a mainstream media publish recognition of the fact there are bigger societal issues at play.

“More than 20 years of research funded by the Justice Department has found that programs to target high-risk people or places, rather than targeting certain kinds of guns, can reduce gun violence.

David M. Kennedy, the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argues that the issue of gun violence can seem enormous and intractable without first addressing poverty or drugs. A closer look at the social networks of neighborhoods most afflicted, he says, often shows that only a small number of men drive most of the violence. Identify them and change their behavior, and it’s possible to have an immediate impact.” via The Assault Weapon Myth – NYTimes.com

So, maybe, just maybe, there are people in the media with more than two brain cells to rub together. Maybe, just maybe, the focus will shift to addressing real problems rather than just symptoms. Time will tell. If history is an indication, before sundown, the New York Times will come to its senses and resume printing the typical anti-gun screed for which they have long been known. But, one can always hope.

-GM