Saving the Boston Youth from escalating violence

For almost the past decade, Boston has been riddled with an epidemic of youth gun violence that more often than not ends in the untimely death of Boston’s youth.  Many in Boston still remember the horrific November murders of Eyanna Flonory as she lay in the streets holding her slain baby boy Amani Smith, along with the three other victims Simba Martin, Levaughn Washum-Garrison and Marcus Hurd in the Blue Hill Avenue neighborhood of Boston as reported in the Boston Globe.  Through the years, Boston has experienced young men being shot in broad daylight while waiting at MBTA stops, teenagers getting stabbed and murdered on packed public transportation buses, and even the murder of a 15- year old young man preparing to take the bus at Dudley station to school.  According to city-data.com, for a small metropolis that has strict gun laws that come with mandatory gun sentencing, Boston’s murder rate clocked in at high 9.0 per 100K persons in 2012.  These daunting numbers has sparked the city of Boston to try to come up with ways to curb the violence and murders amongst its youth population.  The three main proposals bought by city officials and the mayor have been enforcing a  curfew, starting a gun buy-back program,  and adding more funds to train and hire more Boston Police.  Solutions like the three listed above don’t and will not work because they do not attack the main issues behind the youth gun violence epidemic.  In order to solve Boston’s youth gun violence outbreak, the city must find ways to address the culture disconnect of Boston’s youth, particularly the minority youth, more community involvement, and ways to make the guns being sold in the black market ineffective by capitalizing on the already shortage of ammunition all over the country.

Most recently, Bpdnews.com reported on Boston’s roll out of the new Boston Gun Buy-Back Program.  The buy- back program is an effort to allow individuals, especially the youth, to turn in unregistered guns without the fear of repercussions of being sentenced by Boston’s mandatory unlicensed/unregistered gun laws.  According to bpdnews.com, individuals will be able to drop off the guns at drop-off sites throughout Boston and surrounding metro areas and receive amnesty, as long as the gun was not used in a crime with no questions asked; and they will receive a $200 gift card in return; rifles and shotguns will be accepted but gift cards will not be given out for such firearms.  The Boston Police commissioner’s hope is that they will reduce guns on the street that can be used for future violent crimes.  Unfortunately, the police department failed to keep in mind three very important factors.  Firstly, Boston youth, especially ones from urban areas, are not going to turn guns in for gift cards.  These guns are bought and sold with cash for the reason of it being harder to track cash transactions, and urban youth are going to be mistrustful of any item given to them by a police agency that can be tracked.  Secondly, most urban youth committing these crimes and buying these firearms are doing so for protection or gang related issues, and a gift card is not incentive enough for them to give up a firearm that could very well save their lives.  Lastly, urban youth do not trust the police, and most guns circulating in the black market are stolen or have been used in a crime, so an individual will not risk turning in a gun that they bought underground not knowing what other crimes it has been used for risking being arrested for a crime that they did not commit.  A gun buy- back program would work more for residents in suburban areas who have acquired guns for protection or hobby reasons, not for urban youth who distrust the police and use such firearms for protection or have used these guns for previous crimes which they will not receive amnesty for.                                                      

A second proposal has been a city wide curfew for youth, which would require certain age groups to be in by 9PM on weekdays and midnight on weekends.  At first glance, this sounds like a great solution to youth violence and even cities like Oakland, Philadelphia, and Detroit at one time or another adopted such curfews.  Unfortunately, the numbers are showing consistently that when it comes to curbing juvenile violence, curfews do not work.  Michael Males, a social columnist, cited in News Works that in the city of Monrovia, California during the 90s, “juvenile arrests for non-curfew crimes increased 53 percent during the school months when the town's curfew was enforced. In July and August, when the curfew was not enforced, non-curfew youth crime went down 12 percent.” Lastly, it is important to remember that as quoted in News Work, “Nationwide, more than 80 percent of juvenile offenses take place between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. - outside most curfews."  Enacting a curfew in Boston is just going to see an increase in youth violence occurrence outside of curfew times as national statistics have shown from cities across America, along with the fact that a lot of Boston’s recent youth murders have happened in broad daylight.                  

The last proposal is Governor Deval Patrick’s proposal to provide $11 million dollars to train and hire more police as reported by The Boston Globe.  Why won’t this work?  The urban youth already do not trust the police, and police presence in the city is not even coming close to solving the murders already happening in the city, especially with the unspoken urban rule of “no snitching; “ cops can’t even solve the murders on their current case load.  Police presence didn’t stop 15-year-old Soheil Turner from being gunned down in broad daylight in a busy Dudley station, and that crime still has not been solved.  Even Dorchester residents mentioned to Boston Globe journalists how rarely police are seen in their neighborhood. The fear amongst urban communities is that, as proven in the past, the increased police presence will only occur in the more affluent communities, not in the urban neighborhoods that seem to be forgotten when it comes to crime prevention.                                                     

So what’s the solution?  There needs to be a combined effort amongst community leaders, especially in providing after school outreach programs for at risk youth, and instead of trying to control a firearm black market, that has ballooned so far out of control that the government has neither the money or manpower to stop it, there needs to be a program limiting ammunition.  Community leaders need to address the fact that as stated in the Tampa Bay Times “8000 to 9000 African Americans are killed each year and 93 percent of them by [other] African Americans.” Outreach programs need to be created in Boston targeting urban youth to get involved with one another in projects such as after school programs, volunteering for organizations that will prompt them to work with and interact with one another reducing the risk of fighting against each other in gang violence.  The last great solution involves ammunition.  Ammunition is at a low in America causing individuals to stockpile them.  Boston should be making it law that only certain retailers can sell ammunition and track the bullets from manufacturers, to retailers, to buyers.  The legislation should also include that the gun owners are limited yearly to a set amount of bullets that they are allowed to buy and they can only buy ammunition for the guns they have legally registered in an electronic tracking system.  Guns can’t work without ammunition, and it is easier to track the already limited ammunition supply in America versus the estimated 310 million firearms circulating in the black market.  It is time that Boston got creative and bring into account more than statistics when coming up with solution to Boston youth violence.  City officials need to get out into the communities and learn and understand the culture and economic dynamics that are plying into the youth violence of Boston along with the lack of outreach programs offered to our youth versus coming up with bureaucratic programs that do not and will not work.

The Real Story Behind Gun Control

The quickest way to start a fire without lighting a match in America is to bring up the subject of gun control.  You are more likely to make a friend out of a conservative by insulting his/her mother than daring to mention banning all firearms in America.  Tell a liberal you own guns, especially high-powered ones, and you spend your Sundays watching football, drinking beer, and going to the gun range and watch how quickly they rescind your invitation to dinner.  With the recent mass shootings in America and “Stand Your Ground Cases”, such as the Trayvon Martin murder in Florida, the country is even more divided than ever on the matter of gun control and the Second Amendment.  Many American’s feel that the estimated 310 million guns in America are excessive and unacceptable along with the belief that if guns were banned across the board in the United States, there would not be three gun deaths per hour in the country.  But is that really the case?  If you are quick to say yes, step back and analyze cities like Chicago and the District of Columbia on how well their strict gun laws are working in lowering their gun violence rates.  Or what about those large billboards that are up along the mass pike highway with the live updated count of how many people were killed in America by a gun? What those same signs don’t tell you is that, despite having some of the strictest gun laws in the country, Boston has 2.01 homicides per 100k population rate.  For a small state whose largest city is one of the smallest metropolises in the country, that’s a pretty large number, especially for a state that is steadfast in its anti-gun and weapons law.  The bottom line is this:  America, since 1791, when the second amendment was introduced, has, and will always be, a culture where guns and the right to protect yourself and property exist.  Eliminating the right to bear arms is not just a violation of the constitution,  but it will also create a dangerous imbalance in America where guns will become inaccessible to law abiding citizens while the black market becomes even more flooded with illegal and unregistered guns for access to dangerous criminals, terrorists groups (domestic and foreign), and drug cartels.

Let’s take a look at the George Zimmerman trial and how the media loves to use the issue of gun violence combined with the race card to fire Americans up about gun control in this country.  The death of Trayvon Martin was a horrible tragedy, but even more tragic was how the media played the race card with the case and how easily and quickly the country fell right in line with it.  When the story first came out about Martin’s death, all that was heard around the country was how it had to be racial, and once again, a “white man was going to get away with killing or injuring an African American.” Yet, when the facts came out that George Zimmerman was half Hispanic, there was barely any mention of that correction by the media or protesters.  Then there was the matter of all the civil rights groups, individuals, and famous musicians and actors coming out to protest at the trial.  What a great show of support and coming together to support and speak out against a senseless death.  But what about the outcry by the civil rights leaders and African American communities when it comes to the epidemic of black on black crimes that are occurring in this country?  Yes, it is true that African American men are seven times more likely to die of homicides than white or Hispanic men; but the most important element of that statistic is that out of the black men killed in America, 92 % of them are killed by other black men. But in high profile cases that involve gun violence, the media or liberal agenda does not want the public to know those numbers.  It fairs better for the gun control agenda to have the race card in play in cases like the Trayvon Martin murder to spark more public outcry.  The tragedy of Martin’s death is beyond words, but there are young black men just like Trayvon dying every day in urban communities all over the country by other black men, and most of the guns being used are not legally owned, acquired, or registered. 

A lot of anti-gun special interest groups, like the Brady Campaign, love to push the gun violence statistics to back up their beliefs that there are too many guns and gun violence in America, along with the fact that it’s anti-gun control lobbyists who are spending the most money in Washington.  So let’s take a closer look at the statistics.  In 2013 nearly 19000 of the 31000 deaths by gun were by suicide.  That is over 61 percent! Despite this alarming percentage, the suicide statistic has been largely ignored by the media, pro anti-gun lobbyists and politicians on Capitol Hill.  Why? Because what sounds better when trying to sway the public: “31000 violent deaths caused by guns “or “31000 deaths by gun in which 19000 were self-inflicted?” Instead it makes better headlines and stories and works better for anti-gun lobbyists to clump the statistics together, especially when trying to ban gun ownership across the boards, even those of law abiding citizens.  Now look at the statistic involving the money spent on lobbying Capitol Hill by both groups.  Conservative pro-gun lobbyists spend more money than anti-gun organizations like the Brady Campaign right? Wrong.  In 2013 anti-gun lobbyists in Washington spent $14 million.  And the pro-gun groups’ 2013 spending outline?  $1.9 million; but liberals and the media don’t give you those numbers.  They instead make groups like NRA out to be the big bad wolf who is throwing money around to get the politicians in Washington to blow the house down on gun law reformation like the three little pigs.  Where is the media reporting on that since they love to report on how much more money conservative special interest group spend than liberal based ones?  Liberal special interests groups are outspending conservative ones by 17-1 on Capitol Hill on the issue of gun control, but yet they are losing the battle.  There goes the argument that Conservatives are winning because of excessive special interest spending. 

So why is the pro-gun agenda winning in America?  The agenda is not working because the Second Amendment states “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  It is a constitutional right for citizens of the United States to bear arms and use those arms to protect themselves, family, and their property.  Anti-gun supporters claim that when the Second Amendment was put into the Constitution, America was a rural setting with little or no protection offered to individuals other than the protection they provided for themselves; in the 1700s guns were needed for personal and property protection.  So what about today in America? There is no longer the need for protection? Crime is not at a high right in the country? Anti-gun groups would have Americans believe that yes, crime is a huge issue, but because of guns, and banning guns across the board would, in fact, bring the crime rate down like in Australia.  Okay let’s break that down, as well.  To begin with, Australia did not have a law written into its constitution that allowed the accumulation of over 310 million firearms in its nation over a time span of over 200 years. Australia also did not have the problem that America now has in the millions, possibly hundreds of millions of unregistered and unaccounted for firearms that are being circulated in the black market.  With or without guns, unfortunately, there is a large culture of violence in America, and citizens have the right, and should have that right, to protect themselves against violent attacks by other individuals. 48 percent of the American population will become the victim of a crime at some point in their lives. Why would the American government want to make it harder for their law abiding citizens to protect themselves from those attacks, while at the same time allowing it to be easier for their attackers and potential attackers to acquire the guns by pushing the firearm market into a fully underground industry?  

 Lastly and most importantly, the pro-gun agenda is winning in America because banning guns and stricter gun laws do not work in this country.  Yes, there has been an overwhelming amount of mass shootings in this country, but banning guns is not going to stop them. Mass shootings are all over the news these days, but in reality they make up a very small percentage of the gun deaths that occur in America every year.  Even places like Norway, who have stricter and more restrictive laws than America, especially when it regards to automatic guns, couldn’t come up with a law that stopped individuals like Anders Brevik who killed 77 people in a Norwegian mass shooting in 2011. But the most alarming gun control statistics of all are not the mass shootings or number of people killed by shootings, it’s the gun control numbers coming out of cities like Boston, Chicago, and the District of Columbia, the most gun restrictive cities in the United States.  District Columbia had, until the Supreme Court ruling that ruled that their city-wide ban on firearms was a violation of the Second Amendment, had the most across the board anti-gun law; a total ban on firearms inside the city of limits.  Was DC safer after enacting the law? No; in fact, the District of Columbia has one of the highest murder rates in the country at almost triple the nation’s average. What about Chicago? Well, Chicago has become the Wild West and clocked in well over 500 murders in 2013 while also being a city in America with one of the most restrictive gun laws. Lastly, there is Boston. Living in Boston, one is aware of the mandatory gun laws the liberal state has, but yet, even after being one of the country’s smallest major cities along with having one of the strictest anti-gun laws, Boston is averaging 2.01 murders per 100k people; for a small city, that is a very large average. All over America, these numbers are common.  Anti-gun laws are not working. Why? Because, most crimes and murders committed in America are committed with stolen and/or unregistered guns.  Law abiding citizens are left with strict laws that prevent them from buying the very firearms that will protect them from such crimes, while the criminals have easy access to guns in the black market.  Why do you think most mass shooters pick gun-free zones to commit the shootings in? There is less chance of a citizen with a legal gun being around to challenge and stop them.

If we had wanted to address the issue of gun control, we should have done it before the black market acquired millions of unregistered guns which we do not have the money or manpower to monitor or control.  Just like in 9/11, we can’t allow the media or special interest groups to play into our fears that cause us to make rash and illogical decisions to try to combat the problem.  Since there are hundreds of millions of guns registered and unregistered in America and over 500 gun manufactures what do we do?  Well the only thing that there is a shortage of in regards to firearms in this country right now is ammunition.  Why don’t we capitalize on that shortage?  We can do three very easy and effective things to cut down on gun violence in America without infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms and protect oneself and property; they are: ban semi-automatic and automatic firearms; ban any sell of guns to unlicensed owners and by unlicensed sellers; and most importantly, restrict and track the sale of ammunition.  Since there is already a shortage of bullets in America, it will be easier to track the ammunition from the starting point of the manufacturers, to supplier, and finally to gun owner.  Put a limit on the amount of ammunition a gun owner can buy along with making it only possible to buy ammunition for the guns you have legally registered into the system.  Does it solve the gun violence issue 100 percent? No, but it will come closer than any across the boards ban on firearms and greatly reduce the country’s gun violence.  The Black market can’t be stop in regards to firearms; the amount of unregistered guns in America has ballooned too far out of control for the government to do anything but try to curb and decrease its sales. Drug cartels and terrorists are acquiring guns from America’s black market at an alarming rate, but if they can’t get ammunition or acquire the ammunition without having a tracking system attached to the bullets, the guns are worthless to them.  Let’s not forget that yes, the world is very different than it was in 1791; it is far more dangerous, and the last solution to the gun violence in America is the one that restricts law abiding citizens from executing their constitutional right of bearing arms to protect themselves and property from those dangers. 

The Utter Distortion of Global Warming

The global warming numbers are staggering, scary, and daunting: ten warmest years on record have occurred in the past 15 years; the 6-8 inches rise of sea levels in the last 100 years; a 67.5% increase in the concentration of the Earth’s carbon dioxide from the year 1900; the depletion of valuable fossil fuels by human consumption; a decrease of the polar ice caps at a rate of nine percent every 10 years; and the almost one degree Celsius increase in the Earth’s average temperature in the last two centuries.  The debate is not if Global Warming is happening; the real debate is rather the warming is due to human negligence and abuse or if the warming is part of the world’s natural cycle of climate change.  But what if there is a third option?  What if the global warming is due to a combination of both factors and the solution requires research and solutions from both opposing sides?  It is time to stop debating on the obvious existence of global warming, and instead, attack the issue head on as both a man made and climate change instead of either or.

In his lecture “The Truth about Global Warming-Science and Distortion,” Nobel Peace Prize Winner Stephen Schneider pointed out that the mass media and special interest groups from both sides are creating a fraudulent debate in regards to global warming.  “Special interest groups will take one component, put it out of context, and spin to fit their interests, and you end up with “the end of the world” vs. “good for you.”  This is called “two lowest probability outcomes” and when left by the media and special interests to the public to figure out on their own, the outcome is “utter distortion.” Instead of being an issue that is being solved by the systems of science, the problem of global warming has become the rope in a special interest game of tug-of-war, and the mud puddle in the middle is the stockpile of the real facts that become so muddled in the dirt, no one can decipher or tell them apart.   (“The Truth about Global Warming-Science and Distortion,” Stephen Schneider).

What are the facts? The fact is global warming is very real.  NASA defines global warming as “the average global surface temperature increase from human emissions of greenhouse gases.”  Environmentalists sticking steadfast to their hypothesis that this global warming is due humans’ excessive use, particularly in the past 200 years since the industrial revolution in the ninetenth century, of valuable fossil fuels, causing environmental problems of dangerously high carbon dioxide levels, record heat waves, melting ice caps leading to record high sea levels and stronger storms, disappearing forests, and the extinction of thousands of the world’s species.  Then there is the other side of the argument that includes scientists and special interest groups who feel that there is an alternative explanation to global warming which is that of natural climate change.  Most conservatives believe that climate change is the cause of global warming and that most liberals and global warming supporters are too quick to predict the cause without weighing out all the causes.  See the tug-of-war battle now?

So who’s right? What if both are right? The fact of the matter is that the Earth has been experiencing natural cycles of cooling and warming since its creation over 4.5 billion years ago.  Polar ice caps have been melting, freezing, melting, and then freezing again since the beginning of time.  The Bering Strait, Pangaea, Himalayas, Swiss Alps, Mt. Denali, and the Grand Canyon all came from melting glaciers and ice caps, and the rising and receding of sea levels.  There are whole mountain ranges miles below the ocean that were once high above sea level.  Even during the medieval times, it is believed that there was actually a warmer period of summer than the ones the Earth has been experiencing in the past 15 years.  One also cannot forget that, since its creation over 4 billion years ago, the Earth has experienced at least 4 Ice Age periods; the last one having occurred about 1.8 million years ago during the Pleistocene Period (livescience.com).  All these natural occurrences are examples of and proof that the Earth does have natural shifts in its climate cycles. These examples are also similar, if not more extreme, than the effects the planet is experiencing in the global warming of today’s day and age. 

On the other hand, one can’t deny the dangerous and debilitating effects that the human species are having on the planet with the over consumption of fossil fuels and over saturation of the Earth’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide. There is no denying that the oceans are getting warmer, and cities on the coasts, like New Orleans and even New York City, are experiencing stronger and more powerful storm fronts as a result of those increased average temperatures of the ocean waters and eroding of marshlands and beaches that act as nature’s “sponge” to help protect coastal cities and towns against flooding.  Countries like China, the US, and India are the world’s highest coal consumers at 47 percent, 14 percent, and 9 percent respectively (eia.gov).  With an overall oil consumption that is 25 percent of the world’s total production and oil companies like Exxon making $104 million per day, of course the US special interest groups like Koch Industries wants the public to believe the hypothesis that natural climate change is the cause of global warming (The Week, Feb. 16, 2013).   With new pipeline construction projects such as the Keystone Pipeline, on standby with a potential of over $130 billion in oil revenue over a course of 20 years (Keystone-xl.com), why would special interest oil groups or the politicians backed by these groups want the public to believe that the consumption of fossil fuels is causing dangerous global warming effects on the planet?

My argument is not for either side; I believe that the issues of global warming are a combination of both natural climate changes and man made pollution factors.  There is just not enough evidence to discredit natural climate change causation.  We haven’t been tracking weather patterns for long enough time, nor have we had the satellite technology needed to accurately study the climate system factors, such as global average cloudiness, to scientifically discredit the Earth’s natural climate cycles as contributors to global warming.  Why can’t we work to find greener and cleaner energy options and track the planet’s natural climate change so when our children’s children are faced with the same issues or problems, we have provided the history of science for them to refer to so they don’t repeat the mistakes we are making with this issue today?  I also can’t deny the clear facts on the environmentalists’ side as well.  Having lived in Alaska as a child for 4 years, and recently visiting again this year, I have witnessed that humans definitely do have a direct effect on the planet. When I went to go see a famous glacier right outside of Girdwood that I used to visit as a child; I was greatly shocked to see that in place of the beautiful ice blue glacier that came all the way down the mountain was nearly almost gone and was mostly replaced with mud and grass.

As Stephen Schneider stated, we are living in world of utter distortion when it comes to the matter of global warming.  (“The Truth about Global Warming-Science and Distortion,” Stephen Schneider).  Why are we sitting around arguing over what the Greenland tipping point is or where it is?  Why are we not just coming together on the simple fact that the Greenland tipping point is there no matter the cause and work instead to find a way to avoid it?  The question is not rather or not we come up with greener energy options and use them, because we are at the point where now that question does not matter; we don’t have a choice.  Green energy is now our reality, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Mother Nature’s fault or Exxon’s.  This is the time that the public takes the “two lowest probability outcomes” that the media and special interest groups offer and throw it out the door.  What if we, as the public, make the question of “why" irrelevant and force energy companies to face the real relevant question of “how do we fix it?”  Compromise is how we do it.  The green energy conversion can’t be done overnight; so let’s meet in the middle and  tap into our natural gas options along with building the Keystone Pipeline to gain some energy dependence and economic stability as a country  as we make the transition and reinvest in rebuilding a planet friendly, profitable, and new infrastructure.  At the end of the day, when our sea levels have risen three ft. and our coasts are being hit by storms on the scale we never could have imagined, our great grandchildren are not going to care who was right about causation; they are going to care about the fact we failed at finding a solution.  Since we agree there is global warming but not on causation, why don’t we parallel, double park, sideways?  Let’s treat the problem as a causation of both factors and devote valuable time, effort, and ideas on the real matter at hand and close the door on utter distortion by truly finding a solution to global warming that covers all bases.