If you outlaw guns, then only....

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

I disagree. There are lot's of reasons for shootings, not just the knee-jerk racist (no I di'int) conclusion that it must be crime/drugs. I heard an interesting take on the news this morning. A young black man (who would know better than a mature suburban woman) said that it was all about pride. If someone gets the better of you (nonlethally, of course), you're likely to go get your piece and show him who's a bitch. That's in his neighborhood, anyway. Could be a woman, basketball, parking spot, anything that disses someone.

That's why I cited "territory" and included testosterone as a drug. You can dismiss me as "living in the suburbs" today, but I grew up in Northwest Philadelphia and live only a few miles from John Street's hometown of Norristown.

I would say calling crime and drugs a "knee-jerk racist conclusion" (especially considering up until that point nobody had mentioned race that I noticed) would have to be itself a "knee-jerk racist conclusion". A cultural value that endorses soothing injured self-esteem with assault with a deadly weapon isn't a racial value...is it? It's a crime.

And regardless of whether it's racial or not, I'm unwilling to be disarmed on the excuse "there's cities full of young males who are violent because they are victims of society and can't help themseves; it's easier to 'solve' these problems by disarming you than by jailing them and those who illegally sold them their weapons.".

http://www.capindex.com/images/produ...onal_tract.pdf should be interesting viewing for folks who know the Philadelphia area and have the patence to wait for the download and subsquent PDF formatting.