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Though the much-hyped bill on background checks recently fell apart, our dear Rep. Hakeem Jeffries still has plenty of reason to think about guns and violence.
Rep. Jeffries, while recently celebrating his first 100 days as a member of the House of Representatives, stated that “90% of the American people, for instance, support universal background checks. The reason why we may have some difficulty in getting universal background checks and enacted into law is because of the NRA’s resistance.”
He continued by saying that the difficulty getting the background check legislation passed was an “example of the public interest being possibly thwarted by a special interest in this particular case the NRA.”
Since the odious nature of the NRA should be apparent to anyone on either side of the gun control debate, (the NRA was PRO-gun control when Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party wanted to pack in public. They tried to push the blame for gun violence on violent video games. ) the more interesting question is how much is the gun question a matter of public interest.
What are the ways in which people actually kill each other in Brooklyn and in New York City in general?
Well, the New York City Police Department released a report earlier this month on murder in NYC in 2012.
Unsurprisingly (and quite tragically), murder in NYC is mostly a problem of young adult men of color killing other young adult men of color. Over 90% of murder suspects were Black or Hispanic, and 87% of victims were Black and Hispanic. The median age of suspects was 26, and the median age of victims was 27. Suspects were male 93% of the time, and murder victims were male 84% of the time.
One intriguing fact from the report that should be of particular interest to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is that Brooklyn had the most murders of all five boroughs, accounting for 36% of murders in NYC in 2012. To restate this very clearly, only ONE of NYC’s FIVE boroughs accounts for more than a THIRD of its homocides.
Also of interest to Rep. Jeffries and his fellow gun control supporters is how many of those murders were committed with a gun. According to the NYPD report, 57% of murder victims in NYC in 2012 were shot to death.
So while guns and their availability is a debate worth having, those who are truly interested in solving the problem of violence in NYC must also start addressing the numerous other factors that lead to murders.
The fact that the two poorest boroughs, Brooklyn and the Bronx, accounted for 36% and 27% of NYC’s murders in 2012 respectively while the two wealthiest boroughs, Manhattan and Staten Island, accounted for 15% and 2% of murders respectively should raise suspicions about the roles poverty and wealth inequality play in violence.
Also, those, like Wayne LaPierre, who like to blame homocides on gang members need to revise their views on the issue when it comes to NYC. The NYPD report stated that only 9% of homocides in NYC were gang-related while 18% were the result of domestic violence and 42% were the result of a dispute. So surprisingly, more murders in NYC come from two lovers fighting than two gang members fighting.
The availability of other weapons besides guns should theoretically be up for debate as well.
More than one in five (21%) murder victims were stabbed to death. If one favors tighter regulations on guns based on murder statistics, one should also favor tighter regulations on knives and other sharp instruments.
While I think this would be an absurd road to go down, it is not unheard of. NYC already has knife laws prohibiting the open view carrying of knives unless it is “being used for or transported immediately to or from a place where it is used for hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, picnicking or any employment, trade or occupation customarily requiring the use of such knife,” (exceptions for hunting! sound familiar?), and it is illegal to have a knife with a blade longer than 4” in any public place, street or park.
England, whose gun laws Piers Morgan and other gun control supporters love to bring up as a successful model to be copied, banned samurai swords after a tragic incident where a 15-year-old boy was attacked by a gang wielding a samurai sword.
Those concerned with violence against women should be focused on other factors besides gun availability as well. According to the NYPD report, 27% of female murder victims were killed with a gun while 34% were killed with a knife. So, if you’re a woman in NYC, it’s not guns you should be scared of; it’s knives!
Also, 68% of murders against women were incidents of domestic violence. In other words, merely stopping the public carrying of guns, knives, etc. will not affect the vast majority of murders against women.
So while Rep. Jeffries’ support of gun control legislation is certainly reasonable, if he is truly serious about stopping violence in his district and his city rather than scoring liberal points and being a good Democrat, he would do well to start focusing his energy on other factors that influence violence as well.