By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
It’s hard to imagine that it’s been 21 years since John Singleton released his signature cinematic masterpiece, Boyz in the Hood. Unfortunately, too much of the film’s poignant subject matter and brilliant insights remain relevant concerns in the national discourse today.
One of the major underpinnings of this movie was the horrific, and often surreal, violence that plagues residents of “the hood” on a daily basis. To put things into some perspective, South Central L.A. has been traumatized with murder rates five times the nationwide average, or in absolute figures, double the entire U.S.’s death rate for breast cancer (L.A. Times, January 1, 2004.) However, in truth, the human carnage and loss of life in South Central is also being played out in most urban centers: Chicago, New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and the list goes on.
It now appears that this virulent strain of gun-related death and destruction has metathesized to the greater body politic – in both rural and urban communities. The unimaginable tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut is just the most recent reminder of a country whose gun-culture has gone totally awry. Moreover, it is estimated that there are anywhere between 300 to 400 million handguns in this nation; and, every year another 4 million handguns find their way into our midst.
For years the National Rifle Association (NRA) has hoodwinked this nation into believing a number of blatant deceptions, fallacies and outright lies. The first ridiculous assertion that the NRA advances is, “guns don’t kill people — people kill people.” In other words, if an individual who suffers from mental defect commits a mass shooting, the guns used in the commission of this heinous act are not at fault. Rather, it’s the fault of the person using the weapons, but this line of reasoning completely ignores the synergistic relationship between the shooter and his weapon of choice – a firearm.
But, the NRA’s madness just doesn’t stop there. It also propagates the notion that the solution to random mass shootings is to arm “law-abiding” citizens. In fact, several pro-gun supporters have publicly theorized that had the principal or school psychologist been armed when the intruder entered Sandy Hook Elementary School it would have been a totally different outcome. The insanity of this suggestion, and approach, are so outrageous it barely warrants a response. Suffice to say, this prescription would be akin to throwing gasoline on a fire already out of control.
The coup de grâce, in terms of outlandish NRA assertions, is the contention that the Second Amendment extends an “absolute right” to bear arms, which is simply not the case. To illustrate the point, the First Amendment’s right to free speech/expression does not give an individual the ability to go into a crowded theater and shout, “fire.” Moreover, lost in this discussion of amendment rights is the realization that these same rights are also imbued with certain responsibilities.
The incidence of mass shootings in America is a national disgrace, plain and simple. For far too long, this nation has cast a blind-eye to the rampant gun violence that torments most inner-cities. And, as we have just seen, handgun violence [in America] is now so deranged that no age-demographic is beyond its reach.
There was a time when Americans thought that the upheaval of gun violence was the exclusive provision of urban areas. That is longer the case. In truth, every community and individual is now fair game. And, if drastic legislative action isn’t taken, the entire country will morph into the new South Central.