The Problem Isn’t Guns, It’s Richmond
Share this article
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
Comments
Comments
40 responses to “The Problem Isn’t Guns, It’s Richmond”
-
I watched Discovery Channel’s Body Cam show last night. It features police interactions with people filmed by dash cameras and body cameras. One of the stories involved a man attempting to hijack a car from a woman, whose two children were in the back seat, from an elementary school parking lot. The guy was a convicted felon with multiple arrests for possession of a firearm over the last few years. Yet, he seemed to have received very short sentences and/probation, rather than a more significant sentence based on the crime. The program showed the failure of the criminal justice system to enforce laws on the books.
While this is just an anecdote, how many other felons are given slaps on the wrist for multiple arrests for unlawful possession of a firearm?
And, of course, we have the example of the non-use of Virginia’s Red Flag law at UVA.
It’s too bad we no longer have journalism in the U.S. What would in-depth reporting 0f how our gun laws are enforced or not.
-
Wow – there you go with all that Euro-centric factual analysis stuff again.
The best stupid argument is when the Dems [see VP Cackle] hollers that the AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle is nothing more than a weapon of war [no nation equips its soldiers with semi-automatic rifles/carbines] designed to kill lots of people really, really fast….. LAUGHABLE.
One question which destroys that point — Why then does almost every police car have one?
-
Obviously to match the weapons of the criminals.
-
Really – can you list six instances where a criminal used a semi-auto rifle/carbine in the commission of a crime in VA?
-
No need to as it is well documented that police departments across the country have had to upgrade their armaments to avoid be outgunned by the criminals.
-
That was when they got pistols to replace their revolvers. That was well documented around a half century ago.
-
Please post some “well documented” hyperbole-free evidence that “police departments across the country have had to upgrade their armaments to avoid be outgunned by the criminals”.
The fact is, police seldom face a criminal with an AR-15.
Handguns are used in the overwhelming majority of crimes committed by persons with firearms.
-
Except for the almost daily mass shootings!
-
-
-
-
That is not at all obvious.
-
-
Also, the AR-15 was sold as a civilian semi-automatic sporting rifle starting in 1963.
The select-fire version, the M16A1, was adopted as the primary infantry weapon for the U.S. military in 1967.
The AR-15 is not a “military-style” weapon, the M-16 and its variants are “civilian-style” weapons.
It would be nice to see Sears actually do something about gangs and the other problems she identified. Criminals do not respect the laws!
-
As the first line of defense Mayor Stoney and the city of Richmond have an obligation to “actually do something” besides yammer about crime.
See the quote from the Mayor’s office in my other comment rejecting a “law-enforcement based approach to gun violence prevention,”
-
Seems like all politicians do is yammer!
-
It’s an occupational hazard for most of them. Refreshingly, the Lt. Gov seems a straight shooter.
-
-
No. The problem is guns.
-
….and doughnuts – don’t forget all those deaths from bad, unhealthy food.
-
Right! Doughnuts. And guns. Cops on a sugar high. Very dangerous.
-
Doughnuts may kill more cops than guns.
Odd fact, more cops are injured each year from accidental firing of their own guns than from hostile shooting.
-
-
“No. The problem is guns.”
Your perception. Not reality.
The Defund the Police movement and recent uncontrolled rioting has not only confirmed the need for armed self defense among existing gun owners, it has swelled the ranks to include more women and minorities.
-
No inanimate object has ever been “the problem”.
“The problem” is always misuse of inanimate objects by people.
-
Which is why you take the object away from people, or control it very, very well. Try anyway.
-
Unless possession of the inanimate object is a basic right. Then you need to be careful that you only take the inanimate object away from criminals and others who have forfeited that right.
-
No right is immutable, not one.
No matter how many times DJT says, “I have an absolute right.”
So, if it takes altering the right, then that shall be done.
-
That depends on how immutable your definition of immutable is.
The rights guaranteed under our constitution are immutable unless we are convicted of a crime for which the punishment includes forfeiting one or more of those rights. Or unless the constitution is legally amended to alter or remove protection for one or more of those rights.
-
You have the right to free speech. You can be punished if you abuse it, but there are no preconditions to the right. There’s no test you have to take to get it. It’s yours at birth. Rights are not permissions or licenses, which have qualifications to obtain. The government does not issue them.
-
Tell SCOTUS. Reference reproduction when you do.
-
Proving my point – thank you. No one has to get a permit to buy a copier – they are punished if they misuse it.
-
-
-
Perhaps you would be happier in California (aka lalaland) with Newsom and his 28th Amendment.
-
Sure would. Except for the wildfires, earthquakes, torrential rains and snow, floods, uh,… where was I? Monterey is nice.
-
I ask my inlaws what they expect next, locusts is about all they’ve missed so far.
Monterey is very nice, and language diverse.
-
That depends on how immutable your definition of immutable is.
The rights guaranteed under our constitution are immutable unless we are convicted of a crime for which the punishment includes forfeiting one or more of those rights. Or unless the constitution is legally amended to alter or remove protection for one or more of those rights.
Specifically regarding laws which restrict access to guns, it has never been more difficult, nor the process more onerous, to legally obtain a firearm in this country than it is right now.
If guns were the problem we should have had far more mass shootings in this country in, say, 1959 than we do in a given year now. In 1959 in most places, guns could be purchased in hardware stores or by mail order, with no background check of any kind.
It is our culture, our values, and our people that have changed since those days, not guns.
The kid in the Richmond graduation shooting has been charged with 2nd degree murder, but no charges for using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Also, no reports on where he got the gun. That was a crime too.
From the Mayor’s office before the graduation shooting:
“We appreciate the group’s work and interest, but disagree with their advocacy for a law-enforcement based approach to gun violence prevention,” wrote the mayor’s press secretary, Jim Nolan. “We are focused on evidence-based programs that are more community-focused, and reflect a human services and public health approach, such as the $500,000 grant we recently received from the state department of criminal justice services.”
That has not worked very well so far. The Lt. Gov. is onto something. Seems she has got it right.
The problem isn’t “Richmond” either. Everybody knows who is shooting people. Young males, mostly big time economic losers. There are guys in the drugs/rapper/gangbanger culture mostly shooting each other and too many random bystanders. Then there is the loner/angry/gamer who is so mentally ill and bitter he thinks it worthwhile to kill coworkers or some other soft target. I include in this group the racially or hate motivated attacks, but the person involved usually still fits that loner/angry loser profile as well. These folks are also in a gang of sorts but it an online community of similar losers (yes, today’s Nazi’s fit that description, a gang of angry online losers looking for a scapegoat for their misery.)
Knowing they are out there, knowing the music and gaming and entertainment industry is inciting them, knowing the police usually cannot stop them (cops were all over that graduation site last week), the rest of America is keeping their guns and you will die trying to disarm them. You can win an election with this nonsense, but the guns aren’t going anywhere.
-
I agree with everything you said, with a single caveat regarding one of the causes of the violence we are seeing among our young people.
When a responsible parent or guardian is available to provide reality-based balance to mitigate the incitement by the entertainment industry, neither music nor video games will warp a young person enough to do the awful things the losers you mention do.
In my opinion, it is unsupervised and unmonitored access to these things by children and adolescents which leads to trouble.
While he was growing up, my wife and I allowed our son to play video games with increasing levels of violence (and other potentially objectionable material) as he grew older and more mature. We regularly had frank discussions about the content of the games he was playing, about what is real and what is fantasy, and what is good and what is bad. By the time he was about 14 or 15, we stopped monitoring the specific content of the games he played, but the frank discussions about morals continued.
He is now a well-adjusted 21-year-old who is one of the kindest and friendliest people I know.
-
I don’t disagree. Our solution at one point was the Gameboy “broke” and we never got around to fixing it… 🙂 These tragic young men usually are coming out of a problem home environment, although plenty of single parents do succeed is raising kids well.
Brings up another issue, this one unique to our times, and that is the attraction too many young thugs find to putting their behavior out on social media. Creating the media buzz seems to be the real goal sometimes. Fits both of my categories above as the mass shooters love to stream their mayhem often.
-
The left is so worried about the death of innocent people that they are willing to kill other innocent people to take their guns away.
That’s true virtue signalling.
-
One of the “progressive” anti-gun strategies is to demonize everyone who owns a gun. Their goal is to have law-abiding gun owners viewed as “evil” by their fellow citizens. Then, when the “progressives” have complete control of our government, they will be able to imprison us (or worse) while maintaining the fiction that they are doing it to save innocent lives.
-
For the democrats it’s not a new technique. They invented it with Jim Crow and the Nazis refined it with the Jewish Laws. Now they are using it against gun owners, Christians, etc. Democrats never stray far from their bigoted roots, and will use any means to attain their goals.
-
The left is so worried about the death of innocent people that they are willing to kill other innocent people to take their guns away.
That’s true virtue signalling.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.