The Huffinton Post printed nonsense from Josh Horwitz, executive director and professional liar from . Here’s part of what he wrote and my response:
Nugent has blatantly misstated the facts. In truth, more whites are arrested for violent crime in the United States than blacks (even though African Americans are arrested for such crimes at a higher rate than whites). There are multiple socioeconomic and structural causes that increase an individual’s propensity for violent behavior. Pigmentation is simply not a factor.
Source for all quotes
Blacks are 14.1% of the population according to BlackDemographics.com. Non-hispanic whites are 63%. Of course, I would like to see what he was counting as violent crime. Gun haters often think that if a crime happens outside a school, that counts as a school shooting. Later on he does admit that “Although African Americans make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, nearly 40 percent of homicides are committed by African-Americans,” and the proceeds to explain why. Does the explanation matter? I think not. 13% of the population is committing 40% of the homicides. Yet you won’t see me demanding Black Control, I still stand for individual rights, unless you try to violate the rights of another individual, like this guy:
Consider the tragic death of 25 year-old African-American Kajieme Powell in St. Louis this summer. Powell came to the attention of St. Louis County police on August 19 when he stole two energy drinks and packet of pastries from a local convenience store. He made no attempt to get away, however. Instead, he placed the cans on the ground outside the store and paced nervously back and forth, as if waiting for something. When two police officers arrived on the scene, Powell walked toward them with a kitchen knife in his hand, yelling, “Shoot me!” As he closed in on the officers, they obliged, shooting him dead.
And we’re supposed to feel sympathy for him? I don’t. He was a THUG, he wanted to attack the cops, he thought the cops were too scared to shoot him over our PC client where shooting bad guys leads to this:
It was a textbook example of suicide-by-cop. And yet very little of the subsequent national conversation mentioned the issue of mental health. Instead, we got the standard character assassination that is so common when African-Americans are involved as perpetrators. Comments like this one by NBC contributor Jeff Halevy: “Knife-wielding thug who just robbed a store. Get over it. It’s not always race.”
It’s not always race? Then why is a perpetrator immediately dehumanized when he is African-American? He is a “thug” who was involved in a “drive-by.” Or he’s a “gang banger” who got caught up in “inner city violence” … Convenient terms to let people know that it was a black person who pulled the trigger. Mental health is not part of the discussion, even in cases like Powell’s where it’s an obvious factor.
Conversely, when an episode of mass gun violence involves a white perpetrator (think Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Elliot Rodger, etc.), the conversation immediately turns to mental health. The shooter was “deranged” and probably on medication, we are told. And we’ll hear asides like, “He seemed like such a good person” or “We never could have seen this coming.”
So we can’t call a thug a thug because he might have “mental-health issues?” I’ve heard plenty of people refer to Loughner as a psychopath and a monster, does that make us insensitive? Obviously, all criminals have mental health issues, but Josh doesn’t really want to have a conversation about mental health, it’s the guns he blames:
This dichotomy of treatment is intentional. Consider the NRA’s response to the Sandy Hook massacre committed by Adam Lanza, a young white man. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre conducted a press conference a week after the tragedy and condemned our government for refusing “to create an active national database of the mentally ill” — a curious position for an organization that purports to be a protector of individual rights and privacy…The NRA fully understands the racial dynamic at play here. As long as we can blame something other than guns, America will not have to come to terms with the truth that violence is a complicated phenomenon that is made far more lethal by the easy availability and killing power of firearms. And for an organization with an overwhelmingly conservative, white base, that “something other” is minorities.
Yes, violence is a complicated phenomenon, which is why we advocate guns to defend ourselves from violence. As for “something other is minorities,” it was the NRA that had a DESEGREGATED gun range in Virginia when that kind of thing was controversial. Yes, we’re so racist that we allow blacks to shoot with us in our gun ranges, so racist that we fight against laws that ask people what color they are when they purchase a gun, so racist that we oppose “Saturday night special” laws designed to keep the poor from getting affordable guns.
Let’s not forget that, throughout history, racist government policies have contributed to poverty, unemployment and lack of mental health services in communities that are predominantly African-American. Take any racial or ethnic group and subject them to these types of conditions and the results will be similar.
Then how do you explain the success of Asians who faced the Chinese Exclusion Acts and the Irish who contended with “No Irish Need Apply.” It is a racial double standard to make excuses for black failures instead of having the decency to tell the people the truth. Obama once said, “at some point you have made enough money,” I say “at some point, you have got to stop complaining about racism,” because that tune doesn’t fly anymore.
Let us also reject the gun lobby’s unnecessary stigmatization of the mentally ill. The truth is the majority of individuals with a mental illness diagnosis will never be violent toward others. Only about 4 percent of interpersonal violence in America is caused by mental illness alone (there is, however, a strong correlation with mental illness and suicide). Yet, if you were to focus on media coverage surrounding mass shootings, you’d likely come away with the impression that all mentally ill Americans are violent, crazed maniacs who are moments away from going postal. This is patently untrue, and it diverts us from a productive discourse about true risk factors for violence — including low socioeconomic status, substance abuse, and history of arrest.
Right, let us stigmatize guns and the 100 million gun owners that don’t commit crimes with them. Granted, not everyone with mental health problems commit crimes, but institutionalizing people that are a danger to others is far more important than removing their legal guns so they can buy illegal guns in the black market. As for discussing the true risk factors of violence, what’s the point? That’s like protecting yourself from AIDS by watching And The Band Played On. Nice movie, but I’d rather wear a condom. It’s the same with guns, since we can’t stay home all day, since we don’t live in fortified mansions with sentry guards (and even there you’re never 100% safe), we need guns.
For example, studies show that areas with more guns have more gun-related homicides. It is a national tragedy that we have a gun policy that makes it easy even for individuals with long histories of violence to obtain firearms. Felons, domestic abusers and those who have recently been adjudicated a danger to self and/or others based on mental health history are indeed a public safety threat, yet we still live in a country where approximately 40% of firearms transfers happen without a background check.
Crime statistics have shown that Chicago, Oakland (CA), South Central (CA), and every ghetto in the nation has plenty of crime regardless of the gun laws. The only difference is that in Memphis, a good black man gets to have a gun while in Chicago, the good black man and everyone else but the cops and politicians are disarmed. And let’s be clear about something, a percentage of firearm transfers will happen without background checks regardless of the laws they pass. Australia still experiences gun crime, still arrested people with unlicensed guns, and crime has gone up since they confiscated all those guns.
So I have three suggestions for a more peaceful and free America. First, let’s stop using ugly euphemisms like “thug” to describe human beings who might have become violent for a complex set of reasons that have nothing to do with the color of their skin. Second, since we do have a gun violence problem in the United States, let’s look for evidence-based solutions to deal with the problem, like universal background checks and expanded firearm prohibitions for those at risk of violence (i.e., violent misdemeanants, domestic abusers, alcohol abusers, etc.). Third, let’s acknowledge that blaming gun violence on race (or mental illness) is a lazy and dishonest way of looking at a complicated problem that allows the gun lobby to avoid responsibility for the growing body count in America.
As a country that prides itself on extending political equality to every citizen, nothing less will do.
Really? Here are my suggestions
1. Don’t act like a thug and we won’t call you a thug. Black is a color, Thug is a behavior
2. Arm the victims of domestic violence and they won’t be victims anymore
3. Stop demanding gun control when we know it doesn’t work
4. We already have political equality, one man, one vote.