I voted for Obama the first time. My best frriend is Latino. I have a group of Latinos who work on my house, I call them before I do white contractors and its not because they're cheaper. Its the quality of work they do and their work ethics.I judge people by the way  way they treat me, not the color of their skin. People of color often do not have the advantages growing up that we do. Some of them overcome it, some dont. I dont want this to turn into a hate racist thread, I'm just presenting the facts. Jerry asked for these facts and I Pmed them to him, then I decided to go head and make it public.  In over 52% of the murders in the US in 2011 in which the race of the murderer was known, the murderer was black. Over half of the victims of murder were also black. But blacks are only 13.6% of the population. Put all that together, and the murder rate in the US for non-blacks was more like 2.6 per 100,000 in 2011.

As Peter Baldwin put it in his book, The Narcissism of Minor Differences, "Take out the black underclass from the statistics, and even American murder rates fall to European levels."  It's even lower when the Hispanic class is removed.  Furthermore, it's been shown over and over that where there is more freedom of gun ownership there is less crime.  

The problem lies in our culture, not in guns.  We have always been taught to compete rather than cooperate.  Exploit rather than love.  At the very core of our society is the dog eat dog enthusiasm that renders thousands dead every day from the machine we have created.  Yet nobody cries for those victims.  We call it a necessary evil.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
- William Pitt

The amazing thing is that a person is more likely to die from falling down a flight of stairs than to die from a gun shot.  Do we outlaw stairs and make elevators mandatory?  How about automobiles?  A person is five times more likely to die in an automobile than to die from a gun shot wound.  That's not even mentioning the much high maiming and paralysis rates associated with car wrecks.

The truth is that we don't live in a utopia and never will.  Evil people will always find a way to commit murders.  For me; I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.  I was born into a white middle class family which I believe gave me an advantage, especially 58 years ago.

Odd as it seems I must say I seem to somehow have made it to the top of the food chain. I should say Indians are a wide ranging bunch in terms of skin color, but I am nearly black. Very dark brown. That is my winter color, after a few days of lounging in the sun come spring I get 3-4 shades darker. Putting me squarely in Michelle Obama territory.

I see white people get in trouble while I do the same thing and dont. I have driven through license check points and they wave me through, just as well, my driver side window doesn't work, so I dont even try to lower it so they can see me. My friend gets pinched @ a DUI check point by being both drunk and without license, I get there to get him back and they dont even check me. I somehow have landed the status of "we dont mess with him, and he dont mess with us" with both cops and criminals.
Some criminals break in next door and steal get this ... guns. Then a different set of neighbors has some what of a shots fired type BS, all the while the bikes and audio junk and what ever is sitting in plain view and no one even steals a wrench set I have forgot and left on the driveway. Lucky ... but still makes me wonder ... feels like I am skating through.

Anyway midnight I hope I'm still welcome in your world.

I have however for the longest time been strictly nailed to the letter of the law. I've got speeding tickets or things like registration tickets (something like buy the bike and ride it home and get a ticket on the way home inspite of having a title and bill of sale from 2 hours ago) and I'd obediently get to the dmv same week and get it registered and titled and I'd go to court with all the paperwork perfectly in place, and a 1 year insurance policy it would actually be into the same policy as the house and cars, and the judge will go, daymmm you're good and dismiss it.

I would on ocassion before I got my green card, be packed and ready to move to India if I was unemployed, something like 30 days to next job or leave, I never had to go past 15 if I recall. I moved legally with visa and employment once to canada to avoid being Illegal.

Thank god I haven't had to do something like that in like 12 years.

Cool.
Srinath.

Can we steer away from race and call it class?
Or are we not allowed to discuss class?


--Steve

I was being sarcastic in that class is kind of a taboo subject.
I know the stats are there regarding firearms. I know that of inmates who were interviewed some 80% said they acquired a handgun illegally.
I live in a poor city. I see "those" people in the checkout at Stop and Shop on their iphones wearing designer clothes with a flat, grey, WIC card.
There are whites who are successful, and those who fail. There are blacks that are successful, and those who fail.
Mainly my town has had it's Polish population replaced with a Hispanic population and in the span of 20 years I've seen more deteriorated houses, garbage in the streets (actual rubbish, not the denizens), and a general... just... decline in the "feel" of the town and community.

I'm not up to speed on the statistics but couldn't it be argued there are fewer people in a rural setting than in an urban setting. Good fences make good neighbors. There is a much more overbearing feeling living on top of someone like my neighborhood.


--Steve

I don't argue that point.
I try to keep my yard mowed. The next street over... I don't know what they're doing. They treat their yard and home like garbage. They go through a mattress every three months it seems.
They drag them out. The city puts a neon green "We will not take this" tag. Time passes. Not sure what happens next.
One time someone dragged them into the street and set them on fire.
The burn patch was on the road for months after that.

I would never think of doing that.
How many people here would even think of doing that?
This goes back to that thread about life time dependency on welfare.
I will agree with you it does seem like a culture thing. When I drive home from work and "they" are sitting on their porch watching the cars drive by.
Or when I drive by the worse areas and "their" windows are boarded up with plywood. Why would anyone want to live like that?


--Steve

"Memphis is a black city" Janice Fullilove (who is usually referred to as either full of drugs or full of sh!t) Memphis City Council

Hmm, so you're telling me that even their own people won't hire them? Because even in primarily black neighborhoods the jobs are mostly held by whites, latinos and some form of Asian or Semite (usually Lebanese).

Over 90% of the crime is west TN happens in Memphis or in the hoods of the smaller towns (yep, even the tiny towns have dangerous areas now). Most crime in Nashville is perpetrated by blacks or hispanics.

Traditionally crime free areas around the city have become as bad or worse than the city proper (could be because most of it is uninhabitable now). And there are still dividing lines in this county, quite open dividing lines. Take Mid-Town as a perfect example. You'll see a stretch of beautifully maintained pre-1920 mansions, and then a street of burned out shot to pieces bungalows. Then a street of decent middle class families, next to a street of crack houses, shooting dens, strip joints, juke joints, and "Hajjee Marts" (I kid you not, that's what the sign says) that accept food stamps for cigarettes and malt liquor (or Boones Farm, Ripple, Thunderbird, etc).

You can call me a racist, doesn't hurt my feelings in the slightest. I grew up outside Fort Lewis and McCord AFB in western WA, now live way too close to Memphis for comfort.

You say racist, I say realist.

Memphis, down by the river calling on the cement and grain silos, was one of the few places in this country where I wished for a gun....
I hate Memphis. Dirtiest and most racist city (black on white) I've ever been too.

I'm not a racist but the facts  speak for themselves Subtract the Black and Latino shootings,we're one of the most civilised countrys in the world. Sew do you think crime ratings would drop if you turned in your 9 guns? Let a couple of poor parented whacko white boys shoot up the town,the school or whatever and the media and the goverment goes crazy. I have the upmost sympathy for the victims and the families of the latest shootings. A young innocent black teenager gets shot somewhere every night in Memphis, Chicago etc and you never hear about it. I believe in stronger background checks but other than that leave our gun laws  alone. Criminals buy their guns from other criminals.No gun law is worth the paper its writtten on.Its our God given right to protect ourselves and our families.