53 Lives Lost In A Month: I Think I Favor Gun Control — Do You?

A string of shootings in the U.S. in the last month alone has claimed the lives of 53 people. Police still don’t have a motive for several.

Is it time for gun control? Think about it, you have to have a license to drive a car, to fish, even to do nails. So why not to own a gun?

Fact: There are over 83 handgun deaths each day in the U.S. (That’s each and every day)

Is it time to mandate some sort of training to own one? Many states mandate driver’s education for teens, motorcycle safety courses and certification to own certain martial arts weapons. In many states you even have to have training to hunt on public lands! So why not to own a gun?

Fact: In 2005, the most current statistic available from the Centers for Disease Control, there were 789 accidental gun deaths per 100,000 people.

Should sanctions be taken against gun owners whose firearms were improperly stored and consequently were used to cause death or injury?

Fact: In a single year, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States, according to the latest national data released in 2002. That is one child every three hours; eight children every day; and more than 50 children every week. And every year, at least 4 to 5 times as many kids and teens suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries.

Is it time to require a basic level of mental screening to get one?

Fact: In the U.S., guns are associated with the majority of homicides and over half the suicides.

Is it time to rethink limiting the type of guns Americans can own (i.e. a new Brady Bill)?

Fact: While fun to shoot, the Kalashnikov's automatic rifle model of year 1947 (AK-47), M16, Armalite Model 15 (AR 15), Hekler and Koch MP5, Uzi and the like were not meant for any type of “sporting” use. They were designed to kill human beings in a combat environment, thus the name “assault weapons.”

Domestic Violence: Dumb, 'cause you can't solve problems with your fists

I originally included a recent Rihanna photo at the beginning of this blog. Because some felt it a bit much, I have removed it. And, although the photo is disconcerting, so is this issue.

Hitting anyone out of anger is not only wrong its wrongheaded. Know why? Because you can't solve your problems with your fists. Therefore, if you're trying to solve a problem or issue in this way, you're dumb.

Did you know that African-American women experience intimate partner violence at rates 35% higher than their White counterparts and 2.5 times the rate of men and other races? It's true. And, according to the Institute on Domestic Violence, "violence affects all Americans, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. However, this threat has disproportionately dire consequences for African-American women." Did you also know that domestic violence is not just limited to men? Yeah, women hit too. But no matter which way the fists fly, the behavior is just plain wrong.

The way I see it, you've got two issues going on here: handling the explosive situation and managing your emotions. Following are tips on dong both:

If you're really trying to solve a problem or issue, you need to COMMUNICATE:

Women's media.com offers advice on controlling one's anger:

1. Become Aware of what precipitates your anger--identify what "sets you off."

2. Monitor the feelings and bodily sensations you experience when you're becoming angry.Learn to use these sensations as cues to stop...

3. Change the thoughts that trigger anger, interpreting the situation from a different (less provocative) point of view. Often, this involves looking at the situation from the other person's perspective.

4. Write down angry thoughts. Once you have them on paper, challenge and reappraise them. Or write a letter to the person you're angry with and then tear it into a hundred pieces. But be careful: The longer you dwell on what made you angry, the more reasons and self-justifications you can find for being angry. Try not to fan your own fire.

5. Identify and express the feelings that precede anger. Anger is often a secondary emotion, erupting in the wake of other feelings, like frustration, resentment, humiliation, or fear. Try to become aware of the underlying emotion and express that feeling instead of anger.

6. Respond assertively.The goal isn't to suppress anger, but to express it in non-aggressive ways. Blaming, accusations, threats and name-calling are aggressive responses. Calmly and assertively stating your thoughts and feelings about a situation, without blaming, is a far more powerful way to respond in conflict.

7. Relax.Anger is a high-arousal state, so one of the most helpful things you can do is engage in an activity that lowers blood pressure and heart rate, like yoga, stretching, deep breathing, massage, visualization, guided imagery or meditation. Activities like gardening, painting, and woodworking may also be very helpful. Running, walking, dancing, swimming and other forms of aerobic exercise "work off" anger and leave you feeling relaxed.

8. Relinquish your anger.If angry feelings about a particular person or situation are eating at you and none of the above techniques proves helpful, try doing what may be the most courageous and difficult thing of all: Just let it go. If the anger is based on some old wound deep inside, letting go starts a healing process. Consider enlisting the support of a professional counselor or therapist.

A technique I've found helpful is keeping the conversation constructive and on the issue: no name calling. Remember, words can hit like a fist. My Mom has a saying, "you can withdraw your fist, but you can't withdraw a spoken word." Think about it.
But what if despite your best efforts, you're in a heated discussion?

Associated Content printed a great article on dealing with arguments and offer the following tips:

"...the only real ways to end an argument on good terms are walk away, let down your viewpoint or find a way to change the argument into a calm discussion." The best way to attempt [to get to a calm discussion] ...without conceding your viewpoint is to use repair attempts. Make the other person aware that you understand their concerns and assure them we will discuss this when we are both calm. Another option is to turn away from anger and towards love, use affection and say something like "we do not need to do this now, just come and hug me”. Talk about issues before they become real issues and discuss things calmly before they become arguments."

Remember, never hit or insult--those two actions just won't solve your problem.

How about you? Share your story, tell me what's worked for you.

Another “Black-on-Black Violence” Study: Why It’s Not Just Causing African-Americans More Harm Than Good (Part I)

Ok, by now I’m sure you’ve seen or heard the latest headliners about young black males and homicide: Criminal Justice professors James Alan Fox and Marc Swatt “… [found]… an increase of more than 39 percent from 2000 to 2007 in the number of black males ages 14 to 17 who were killed and a 34 percent increase in the number of blacks in that age group who committed homicide.”

While the numbers are alarming, the only problem I have with studies such as these is that they tend to portray or are used to casts ethnic groups as the sole source of the malady. White youth commit crime too: According to Newsmax, the federal Centers for Disease Control reports that "a white adolescent male is four times more likely than his African-American classmate to be a regular cocaine user. Whites are 66 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds, and yet they are 70 percent of drug users in that age group… [And], approximately 9 out of 10 serial killers are white males between the ages of 20 and 35. Yet we never hear these statistics repeated over and over again in the mainstream press, making these crimes synonymous with one particular race as is the case with blacks."

I conducted a search of the literature to help me get my arm around the subject and came across an intriguing abstract by James F. Anderson [1]. Anderson does an excellent job of defining the three classical views on the causes of crime IN URBAN AREAS (remember this because I’m going to come back to it). Some believe that because blacks were excluded (i.e. from good jobs, education, housing, and political access) and victimized (institutionalized racism, discrimination, and brutality) many blacks to chose crime as an alternative means to achieve social and economic prosperity. [Anderson] In other words, a community structure just wasn’t there. Others believe social forces are responsible: peer pressure if you will. [Anderson] Finally, there’s the view that black males learn and assimilate criminal attitudes from others. [Anderson] The proverbial; “birds of a feather flock together.”

As I read the abstract I came to one conclusion: we keep saying that “these” people are broke and we need to fix “them”; even if society, as a whole, created the problem. Remember earlier when I mentioned the abstract focused on urban areas? That IS the problem! We keep trying to define the problem as a black problem as if crime only exists or is committed in the black community by black folk. And that simply is not true. Again, there is no black crime, white crime, race crimes, etc. There is only crime and it affects us all—if not, why do you have that car alarm on that expensive car that you drive from that expense (and alarmed) house in the “burbs” to that high-profile job downtown?

The bottom line is crime is a problem—for everyone, every race, everywhere. We are all victims of crime in one way or another. We have all enabled crime to happen, even if only through indifference (i.e. to “those victims”, “those communities”, “those people”, to the human spirit). Seeing it any other way probably explains why our “solutions” to it are so fragmented, mismanaged, uncoordinated, and inept. Therefore, all Americans are suffering.

I also found one interesting commonality among all three theories that I feel offers a solution. I will cover both his proposal and mine in part 2 of this post.

1. Anderson, James F. “African-Americans, Violence, Disabilities, and Public Policy: A Call For A Workable Approach to Alleviating the Pains of Inner-City Life.” Western Journal of Black Studies Summer 1998.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2877/is_/ai_n28718913?tag=artBody;col1