VPC highlights the fact that Pennsylvania tops the rankings for black-on-black violence.  We haven’t seen much from VPC in a while, but what they are highlighting is a real problem, but it deserves real solutions, not VPC solutions which dismiss the problem as a gun problem, no doubt attributable to our states “weak ” gun laws.
Don’t expect VPC to tell you the real numbers though, and they indicate something very clearly: violence is not a Pennsylvania problem, it is a Philadelphia problem. Statewide, our violent crime rate in 2007 was 416 per 100,000. Take Philadelphia out of the equation, and Pennsylvania’s crime rate is 278 per 100,000. That puts us on par with Idaho, Hawaii, Iowa, Montana, and much of Western Europe. Philadelphia represents 12% of Pennsylvania’s population, but it creates 41% of Pennsylvania’s violent crime.
We’ve documented at great detail the kind of people that the Philadelphia criminal justice system allows to roam the streets terrorizing the city, and African American communities in particular. Until urban communities are willing to face that problem, the bleeding will continue, no matter what gun laws we pass in the rest of the state. Bad things happen when you let dangerous and violent people roam the streets. Crime reaches every aspect of quality of life, and makes it nearly impossible to have normal family life. You can dump all the money into education, opportunity, and jobs you want, but it won’t amount to a hill of beans if the only example of success a lot of inner city adolescents know is from criminal enterprise.
Public order is one of the primary functions of government, and Philadelphia has been failing its citizens for years. That must be dealt with before this problem can even begin to be solved. That’s hard to do when your mayor thinks cutting the police and fire departments is a good first step. Philadelphia residents deserve better, but they aren’t going to get better until they start voting for it, and stop voting for people who will scapegoat guns while failing to address the real problems. VPC is only enabling that scapegoating to continue, and are doing a real disservice to the citizens of Philadelphia by doing so.
Clearly, blacks shouldn’t be allowed to own guns.
That’s sarcasm for people who need to be told that.
Boy. That sounds exactly like Chicago in relation to Illinois. Daley cut back on the CPD as well even w/ a 15%+ jump in murders.
As someone who has taught in an inner city school, I know first hand the type of useless blather from liberals in those communities when it comes to these issues. i think the issues are cultural and have only been made worse by government involvement. In my experience much of these problems stemmed from their parents inability to hold their kids accountable for anything. It’s a serious mess made worse by those who think that throwing money at the problem makes it better.
I’m confused: why is black on black crime a big deal? How is it worse than any other kind of crime? Why do we only hear about black on black crime? Nobody makes a big deal about jew on jew crime, or asian on asian crime, or old on old crime. It’s a mystery…
I don’t think morally there is any distinction of race when it comes to violent crime, it’s more a problem of magnitude that makes people talk about it, and look for solutions. VPC’s is to take guns away from everyone. Mine is to lock the miscreants away for a long time, so the rest of the community can have peace.
My other solution would be ending the War on Drugs, but no one seems to want to talk about that in a serious way.
Ending the drug war is a good way to end the violence, but you have to remember why people in inner cities turn to selling drugs in the first place – drug dealers are the ones with money. City governments really have to look at how their policies can be friendly to job creation, and not rely on these stupid dog ‘n pony show projects (i.e. stadiums, arts centers, restaurant & retail complexes). Those tend to be pay-to-play schemes to enrich politicians and their cronies anyway.
This sounds a lot like Delaware as well. We have a pretty high violent crime rate (we’re in the top 10 nationwide) but if you take out Wilmington (which is predominantly African American) our crime rates would drop like a rock.
Like you said Sebastian, those urban communities have to face the problem and deal with it. There’s not a law we can pass that’ll make people act like decent human beings.
Oh, and you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been called a racist for correctly pointing out that crime in this country is predominantly a black-on-black urban problem. It’s been proven time and time again, but people simply don’t want to hear the truth.
My other solution would be ending the War on Drugs, but no one seems to want to talk about that in a serious way.
They sure don’t, and it seems the only reasons they give for that boil down to, “drugs’r’bad, hmkay?”
“I’m confused: why is black on black crime a big deal?”
It’s the magnitude of it that’s the problem. What we essentially have is a tiny subset of the population (young black males) who are the perpetrators of (and victims of) violent crime at a rate wildly disproportionate to their overall population numbers.
The numbers bear out a serious cultural and/or socioeconomic problem that must be addressed within the communities where that violence is taking place.