If you’re looking for a state where draconian gun control laws have singularly, spectacularly failed to protect its citizens from “gun violence,” New Jersey is it. ‘N.J. homicides soared to seven-year high in 2013 after surges in Newark, Trenton’, nj.com reported back in January. Ah yes, Newark. A city whose gang-bangers bang and bang and bang, to the point where Mayor Ras Baraka invited criminals, gang members, and police to a church in Newark for a sit-down . . .
“During the meeting, dozens of police officers with high-powered weapons stood outside the Bethany Baptist Church, as Baraka sat inside meeting with those who have chosen a life of crime,” newyork.cbslocal.com reported.
Anyone see the disconnect there? The Mayor was trying to get gang members to put down the guns while protected by guns. Anyway, when addressing “gun violence” at at the Jersey City NAACP’s Annual Freedom Fund banquet, Hizzoner said nothing about gangs. Instead, he waved the bloody shirt.
“While America debates the constitutionality of the right to bear arms, nobody is debating the savagery that guns have unleashed on our communities where black and brown people live,” he said.
“The debate over gun violence is not something that’s a political debate, it’s something that’s very real to families who live in these situations every single day. Who have to deal with the level of violence that is penetrating their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their everyday life.”
Baraka said his stance had been reinforced when he visited a 9-year-old girl who a day earlier had been shot by her 12-year-old brother, who was playing with a stolen firearm he found in a bedroom in their Renner Avenue home.
“I could not in good conscience speak this evening without letting you know what was on my heart after seeing that young girl in a hospital bed in the city of Newark, and thinking about the countless and senseless deaths that we encounter in our city every other day,” he said.
So stop that stupid political debating stuff about the founding document of the United States that protects Americans’ natural and civil right to keep and bear arms…and pass more gun control laws! Because guns! Meanwhile, Baraka hit the nail on the head, sort of . . .
“Our graduation rate is nowhere near where it should be. Our kids, it’s easier for them to get an Israeli-made Uzi or a Chinese-made rifle than it is to get a diploma made in Newark, New Jersey,” he said.
I believe the word he was looking for was “earn.” As in, “earn a diploma.” Whether it’s fighting crime or educating a populace, it’s that whole personal responsibility thing you need to make it work. That plays in Peoria, but not Newark. Et voila.
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