Black
men in Philadelphia are an endangered
species, murdered at an alarming rate by gun violence.
The city's murder
rate is the highest of America's
ten largest urban centers. Although Philadelphia has
only one-sixth the population of New
York City, it has more murders. In 2006, 406
people were murdered in Philadelphia,
a trend that shows no sign of relenting through 2007. So far,
as of September 4, there have been 279 murders this year.
In fact, the situation
is so alarming that Philadelphia City Council members Darrel Clarke
and Donna Reed Miller have sued the Pennsylvania legislature,
accusing it of placing a stranglehold on the city's ability to enact
tougher gun laws.
Unlike New
York City, Philadelphia cannot
pass its own gun laws. The City Council would like to pass legislation
limiting gun purchases to one a month, and strikes at purchasers
who buy multiple guns for those who cannot do so because of a criminal
record. But the Pennsylvania legislature
will not give any municipality that authority. With no waiting
period to purchase a gun other than a background check, and police
unable to restrict who can carry a concealed weapon, Pennsylvania
has one of the country's most lax gun laws. In fact, the Brady
Campaign to Stop Gun Violence gave the state a D+ on laws shielding
families from gun violence.
Many would suggest
that the Philadelphia murder crisis
is being ignored for the same reason that the U.S. and
the West ignored the cries for help in Rwanda,
and continue to do so today, amidst the genocide in the Darfur region
of Sudan.
The people who are
dying are black.
"I stand here
today as an outraged black man," said Michael Nutter, who is poised
to become the city's next mayor. "And I'm outraged that
more people of more races are not outraged." Nutter noted
that of the 406 people murdered in Philadelphia last
year, 296 were black adult men.
Miami Police Chief
John Timoney seems to agree. "There's also some inherent
racism. I can guarantee you ... that if 85 percent of the people in
big cities getting killed were white, there'd be a different approach
to this whole thing. ... They'd be screaming for more federal legislation.
They'd be demanding it, and to hell with the NRA," he recently
told CBS News.
The NRA is one of
the nation's most powerful lobbyists, and its grip on Pennsylvania is apparent. It seems
to have more clout than the families in North and Southwest Philly
who are being strangled by gun violence. "This legislature,
for too long, has been in the control of the NRA," Pennsylvania
Governor Ed Rendell said, noting that criminal penalties for receiving
a stolen television are harsher than for a stolen gun. "This legislature,
for too long, has done things favored by lobbyists, not things favored
by people."
The NRA and the power
it wields have little to do with freedom, liberty, or constitutional
rights, and everything to do with profiting on a myth about the Second
Amendment. The amendment says "A well-regulated Militia, being
necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Somehow, the gun lobby
has ignored the first part of the amendment, and uses the second part
of the amendment as a justification for a limitless gun supply. Common
sense should dictate that the proliferation of such weapons — now numbering
about one for every American — is incompatible with a stable democracy.
In 1991, former Supreme
Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called the Second Amendment "the
subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word 'fraud,'
on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever
seen in my lifetime...[the NRA] ha(s) misled the American people and
they, I regret to say, they have had far too much influence on the
Congress of the United States than as a citizen I would like to see
- and I am a gun man." Burger also noted, "The very
language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended
to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon...[S]urely the
Second Amendment does not remotely guarantee every person the constitutional
right to have a 'Saturday Night Special' or a machine gun without any
regulation whatever. There is no support in the Constitution
for the argument that federal and state governments are powerless to
regulate the purchase of such firearms..."
The only gun control
law to be struck down on Second Amendment grounds was that of the District of Columbia, which was overturned
this year by a federal appeals court. One can only hope that this misguided
decision, which D.C. will appeal in the Supreme Court, is only an aberration.
And the U.S. must come to terms with the
historical role of gun violence in American society. Whether it was
the massacre of native populations, the maintenance of slavery, the
reign of terror during Jim Crow segregation, or the suppression of
free speech and labor unions, the gun was there. It has been
a bloody history, not one to be romanticized. And even today,
the use of state-sponsored gun violence in a senseless war in Iraq has
cost thousands of lives, and only worsened America's reputation in the international
community.
At the same time,
for Philly and other urban centers, guns are not the only problem,
although they are part of a vicious cycle. Philadelphia is
mired in poverty — about 30 percent — in spite of the conspicuous signs
of prosperity downtown. Many poor, uneducated and unemployed
men with lots of spare time and little or no hope make a perfect recipe
for disaster. And communities of color often refuse to cooperate
with law enforcement, and understandably so, because of a long history
of police brutality and shooting first and asking questions later.
Great cities such
as Philadelphia cannot fight
this battle alone, blocked every step of the way by suburban and rural
legislators whose constituents love their guns. Gun violence
touches every part of society, big city and small town alike. And
suburbanites, who believe their responsibility to the cities ended
with the onset of white flight, must realize that we will rise or fall
based on our cities. For example, if Philadelphia is
consumed by gun violence and unable to attract new residents and business,
the entire region will suffer.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania state legislature
recently passed a bill that would compel police departments to trace
illegal guns confiscated from minors and report them to a state police
registry, and expand the definition of firearms to include rifles and
shotguns. Gun control advocates say the legislation, which was
backed by the NRA, is not enough.
Ultimately, Philadelphia must be freed
from the grip of the state legislature and the gun lobby so that it
is can develop solutions to stop this bloodletting. The lives
of these black men and their families must take priority over the profiteering
of arms manufacturers and high-priced lobbyists in Harrisburg.
BlackCommentator.com Columnist
David A. Love is an attorney based in Philadelphia,
and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project and McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
He contributed to the book, States
of Confinement: Policing, Detention and Prisons (St. Martin's Press, 2000). Love is
a former spokesperson for the Amnesty International UK National Speakers Tour, and organized
the first national police brutality conference as a staff member
with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. He served as a law clerk to two Black federal judges. Click
here to contact Mr. Love.
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