Unimpeded Access To Firearms
BY Herschel Smith
8 years, 8 months ago
Morris Copeland runs the Miami-Dade agency in charge of juvenile offenders, and he mostly listened during a Thursday panel discussion about youth and violence and what may be causing so many children to end up either firing fatal shots or dying from them.
After about 40 minutes, Copeland leaned into his microphone and delivered the bluntest theory of the day.
“They have unimpeded access to firearms,” said Copeland, director of the the county Juvenile Services Department, which processes most children arrested in the county. “We have 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds packing heat. I’ve been in this business for 28 years. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Kids are going to fight. Kids are going to disagree,” he continued during the Youth: Next Generation panel at the State of Black Miami Forum at Florida Memorial University. “A child with firearms is a recipe for disaster.”
Uh huh. “The bluntest assessment of the day.” Kids have unimpeded access to firearms. That’s the problem, is it, Mr. Copeland? Form 4473 doesn’t stop your kids from getting guns? The gun store salesman at the counter doesn’t mind selling to a 12 year old? I’ve seen them refuse people much older.
Oh, you mean those kids break the law to obtain those firearms? I’ve got it now. So what you’re really discussing is a moral and cultural problem within the black community, right? I looked at the picture in Miami Herald. I saw a lot of black folk, blacks who care deeply about their community. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re made in God’s image just like me. But that’s exactly what makes you accountable before God for fathering families that have fathers, for churching your children, for teaching them about life and the difference between right and wrong, for forcing them to deal with failure by working harder rather than demanding a handout or a promotion up to the next grade level even though they can’t read.
So here’s what we really need from you. I don’t think your statement was blunt or honest at all. I think you need to look your own community squarely in the face and do some truth-telling. Then I would stand up and take notice. In the mean time, don’t even think of curtailing my rights because of a moral and cultural problem within the black community. Handle the log in your own eye before you look for the speck of dust in mine.
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On April 8, 2016 at 10:12 am, Fred said:
No god, no father, no discipline, no consequences, what could possibly go wrong? Well, consequences none the less, that’s what.
At every turn, those blind to God will blame a symptom. If I might recommend that Mr. Copeland check out Ezekiel 6:1-7 first and then read the prayer in Daniel 9:3-19. The mirror is hard but effective medicine.
On April 8, 2016 at 10:42 am, Roger V. Tranfaglia said:
Cap’n..
The problem IS what you stated AND easy access to guns.
Kids growing up in ANY ghetto do not get the best role models, they “see” the easy fix. and for the most part go with that. Not that I’m an “expert”, (and I’m speculating here) but gangs will let the young’uns “borrow” a gun to get them to join. Anything that works, anything goes!
On April 8, 2016 at 11:29 am, Archer said:
I think you may have missed the point.
The PROBLEM is a moral and cultural one within the black community (and other communities, too, but right now we’re focusing on the black community).
If that problem were fixed — if fathers stuck around, married the mothers of their children, and helped raise their kids (IOW, created families instead of broken homes); if parents lived and taught Biblical values; if the kids learned respect for the law and other people, and the value of working and earning an honest living — then easy access to guns wouldn’t be a problem.
Focusing on “easy access to guns” is like this: Suppose your town has a massive problem with drunken driving among teenagers, with many fatalities every month. How do you solve this problem?
Institute new driving laws? Enact Prohibition v.2.0 (i.e. fix the “easy access to booze”)? Ban all the cars from the roads (i.e. fix the “easy access to cars”)?
Or, do you teach your youngsters to police their own activity, not drink (especially to excess), and value their own lives as well as others’ lives enough to not take the risks, and encourage other parents to teach their kids the same (i.e. fix the moral and cultural problems that contribute to drunken driving)?
Which of these do you think would be most effective?
On April 10, 2016 at 3:30 pm, Billy Mullins said:
Mr. Tranfaglia,
Even if you are correct, and part of the problem IS “easy access to guns”, what do you propose as a solution? Even if our government DID prohibit private ownership of firearms (an “if” the size of the entire Eurasian continental landmass) and all firearms were required to be turned in. Then what? On the one hand the Australian experience would indicate something significantly below 100% compliance (IMS something less than 50% compliance, in fact) – by ostensibly law-abiding citizens, mind you – with such a measure. Even if such an (utterly unconstitutional and sure to be bitterly contested) action were 97% effective (and when has ANY government program been 97% effective – EVER!?) that would still leave millions of firearms in ostensibly formerly law-abiding hands! On the other hand, those firearms in admittedly non-law-abiding hands would be virtually untouched! What then?
Mr. T, any action in the nature of outlawing private ownership of firearms would be the very DEFINITION of “closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out”! That particular set of equines vacated the barn almost TWO AND ONE HALF CENTURIES AGO. Hell, IMS, we fought a revolution at least in part over that issue.
Now, let’s hear YOUR solution to the problem of “easy access to guns” by young people? Well? We’re waiting. Oh, and for the record, I agree 100% with Herschel’s instructiion “[D]on’t even think of curtailing my rights because of a moral and cultural problem within the black community.” Or ANY community for that matter.
On April 8, 2016 at 1:00 pm, Phil Ossiferz Stone said:
*I* had unimpeded access to firearms when I was a teenager. I never shot anything except ground squirrels and tin cans.
PS: Herschel, have you heard anything on Mike Vanderboegh recently? He hasn’t updated his comments section for a couple weeks now, and I am getting a bit concerned.
On April 8, 2016 at 7:08 pm, Archer said:
The latest from David Codrea, as of April 1:
http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2016/04/mike-vanderboegh-update.html
Sick, feels like s#!t. We’re still praying for him.
On April 8, 2016 at 7:41 pm, Phil Ossiferz Stone said:
Thanks.
On April 9, 2016 at 9:58 am, Blake said:
thank you, I had been wondering also.
On April 10, 2016 at 1:37 pm, gyrwan said:
“what may be causing so many children to end up either firing fatal shots or dying from them.
…
‘They have unimpeded access to firearms,’ said Copeland …”
Weirdly, this seems another type of anthropomorphizing firearms.
Just as “Guns Kill” on their own, separate and distinct from the actions of humans to pull their triggers; now they also put themselves into the hands of children.
Guns, … what can’t they do?