According to a piece in the New York Times written by University of Notre Dame philosophy professor Gary Gutting, the reason that gun-control laws are not stricter in the United States is . . . racism.
“Our permissive gun laws are a manifestation of racism, an evil that, in other contexts, most gun-control advocates see as a fundamental threat to American society,” Gutting writes in the piece, creatively titled “Guns and Racism.”
Why? Well, first of all, more blacks than whites favor gun-control laws. Second, a higher percentage of blacks than whites are the victims of murders committed by guns.
“Black people in the ‘bad parts’ of our cities have to live with utterly unacceptable levels of gun violence,” he explains.
Gutting states that he spends “a fair amount of time in Chicago,” and has noticed that the people seem to care more about gun violence in its white areas than black areas. Now, to be fair, he concedes that that doesn’t necessarily mean that those people are racists — it’s just that they’re not smart enough to see what he sees.
Does this mean that we’re racists? Perhaps not. Perhaps we just haven’t realized the extent to which gun violence is destroying urban black communities. But once we realize this, our passion for justice and hatred of racism should galvanize us to action.
#share#Now, Gutting does acknowledge that some might counter his idea by saying that, as he puts it, “it is often a matter of blacks attacking other blacks,”– but he responds to that point by simply saying he actually is not going to argue against it because . . . well, he just does not want to:
“I’m not concerned with refuting gun-lobby arguments,” he writes.
#related#(Um. Okay then. I wonder if his philosophy students are also permitted to skip over obvious holes in their arguments by simply saying that they are “not concerned” with addressing them — or if that’s a standard he applies only to himself.)
Oh, and by the way, Mr. Gutting — you should have included a “most” in front of your “often a matter of blacks attacking blacks” admission, seeing as 90 (!) percent of blacks who are murdered are murdered by other blacks according to 2013 data (the most recent year of full data available).
But who needs facts, right? After all — there’s an agenda that needs pushing here!