LiberalGunNut™ here! I see a great deal on both sides of the gun issue, I’m more than a little familiar.
“Gang violence” is often a straight-up dog whistle that says, “Black and Hispanic kids blowing each other away doesn’t really count.”
While I don’t think we should be talking like this, it’s not always the dig whistle. Some well-meaning people say it to emphasize the idea that gun violence is not nearly so random as the media implies. Cute little white girl catches a stray round? National news. 5 black kids smoke each other in South Chicago? Might not make the local news.
Point being, the second scenario is not random. Those people choose that life. (I’d also argue it was thrust on them by poverty and poor education, but that’s a whole other rant.)
Still, I don’t want to be painted with the racist brush, so I stay far away from that rhetoric.
And BTW, calling out ~47% of gun deaths as suicides serves much the same purpose, with the same touch of disingenuousness. No one’s saying those are not tragic, but they’re not random and can be avoided.
LiberalGunNut™ here! I see a great deal on both sides of the gun issue, I’m more than a little familiar.
“Gang violence” is often a straight-up dog whistle that says, “Black and Hispanic kids blowing each other away doesn’t really count.”
While I don’t think we should be talking like this, it’s not always the dig whistle. Some well-meaning people say it to emphasize the idea that gun violence is not nearly so random as the media implies. Cute little white girl catches a stray round? National news. 5 black kids smoke each other in South Chicago? Might not make the local news.
Point being, the second scenario is not random. Those people choose that life. (I’d also argue it was thrust on them by poverty and poor education, but that’s a whole other rant.)
Still, I don’t want to be painted with the racist brush, so I stay far away from that rhetoric.
And BTW, calling out ~47% of gun deaths as suicides serves much the same purpose, with the same touch of disingenuousness. No one’s saying those are not tragic, but they’re not random and can be avoided.