Gun Control, Racist as Ever

In his February 9 DRGO post, “Slander as Science”, my colleague Dr. Timothy Wheeler illustrates several ways in which supposed “researchers” on health and violence pass off unsubstantiated bias and speculation as scientific conclusions. Part of the trick is using so many big-word phrases and references to similarly flawed work that readers may glaze over and assume that they know what they’re talking about. Well, they probably do know what they’re doing—advocating an anti-gun agenda for emotional and political reasons, not to mention that academic careers can be made this way.

A recurring theme in this chorus is the allegation that Americans who value independence and self-defense are racists—basically that they are white people who fear non-whites. Of course, believing this canard requires denying the entire history of gun control in America. That started with forbidding slaves to use firearms, continued with Klan riders intimidating freed slaves and their descendants from having the means to defend themselves, carried on into Jim Crow (such as the rejection of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s pistol permit request), and lives on in the high violent crime rates of our inner cities where minorities are the majority. It requires ignoring the founding principles of the National Rifle Association (NRA) to train all comers in marksmanship, open to all races from its founding in 1871, another legacy that continues.

Let’s hear from some outspoken characters in the anti-gun movement about their views, shall we? To be sure, they are usually too guarded to get caught admitting the prejudice they love to indict in others.

Michael Donovan is a professor at Cedar Crest College and a former Allentown, PA city council member. Allentown, like many Pennsylvania municipalities, is repealing restrictive local gun ordinances to comply with the state’s preemption law, now that groups like the NRA have standing to sue to force compliance. The Allentown City Council wisely voted unanimously on February 4 to rescind ordinances that were in violation. There was vocal opposition to this from some who would rather empty the city’s coffers fighting a losing battle. The most surprising argument against repeal came from Donovan, as reported in The Morning Call:

“Allentown” … he said … “is claiming a renaissance for wealthy, white individuals who wish to be safe. I believe the mayor has a responsibility to join the fight against this law.”

Really… Is the purpose of gun control still to make the world safe for wealthy white folks? I thought it was clear by now that people of all socioeconomic and racial identities want to be safe and have the same right to pursue that, like happiness. This certainly includes the right to self-defense and the means to accomplish it.

Thankfully, Donovan was ignored in Allentown and isn’t very influential in the larger world. What does gun ban generalissimo Michael Bloomberg think? Along with other remarks that reflect no real life experience for decades and surprisingly naïve financial acumen, his comments February 6 at the Aspen Institute about gun murders were reported in The Aspen Times:

Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.

“These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,” Bloomberg said. “They just don’t have any long-term focus or anything. It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.”

It’s true that many murders (not 95%) occur among minority males ages 15-25, specifically in urban centers, which parallels the incidence of drug and gang culture and therefore crime in general there. Homicide is the leading cause of death in African-American males of these ages. Of course, neither cities nor any other authority can “get guns out of this group’s hands”, as demonstrated by the fact that these very places have generally had the strictest gun control laws. Bloomberg’s prescription, reported by The Summit Daily, to “throw them up against the wall and frisk them” is hostile, not helpful. No wonder he doesn’t want this talk aired.

How repugnant to declare that these adolescents and young adults are all goal-less, joking murderers (or victims), that guns should be forbidden to all of them and that they should be manhandled to ensure that! Most of these young men are doing their best to stay safe and to make something of themselves, like any others. Treating them all as the bad guys, denying them all the right to be legally armed, would victimize them just as criminals do (criminals who could then victimize them even more).

These offensive, unscripted statements show how gun prohibitionists may see others as less than themselves. It’s just rare that they are so revealing. I don’t know what the world is coming to, but let’s hope it’s not one in which a Michael, either Donovan or Bloomberg, is in charge.

 

— DRGO editor Robert B. Young, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY, an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

All DRGO articles by Robert B. Young, MD.