Why does Slate want to ban advanced technology rifles?

[JustinJ]

But here's a clue where the problem is: The Chicago Police Department just released a study of murders in 2011. The killers were 70.5% Black, 24.3% Hispanic and 3.5% White. (The figures don't add up because 1 killer was Native American and the race of two more could not be determined.)

Now I agree it is culture, not race that is at work here. But if we could change the Black and Hispanic cultures to match the white culture, there would have been only 25 to 30 murders in Chicago in 2011, instead of 433.

Wow. I haven't seen that degree of ignorant racism in a while.

By the above post i'm pretty sure this will be beyond your level of comprehension, but the actions of a small minority of people do not constitute the culture of a race. With a hispanic grandmother who immigrated from Mexico i was raised with regular exposure to hispanic culture so i guess it's just a miracle that it was never instilled upon me that i should murder people.

Thanks for reinforcing the stereotype of gun owners as ignorant and backwards.

 

[silicosys4]

Wow. I haven't seen that degree of ignorant racism in a while.

Its not necessarily racist, although it most certainly does come across that way if taken at face value.
I think what he was trying to say was that, with the discrepancies in demographics of the population of Chicago vs. the murders by race in Chicago, if the murder rate per capita for black/hispanic in the city of Chicago were on par with those of caucasians in the city of Chicago, the overall murder rate of the city would be much lower....which does beg the question, why are those murder rates higher for certain demographic groups than others? What factors could be responsible? Why do you feel pulling the race card your dang self and instead of examining the data is the best answer, Justin?

32% black,
45% white of which 13% is white/hispanic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Chicago

Whether or not those numbers justify playing the race/culture card... too many other factors, IMO.

 

[JustinJ]

Its not necessarily racist, although it does come across that way.
I think what he was trying to say was that, with the discrepancies in demographics of the population of Chicago vs. the murders by race in Chicago, if the murder rate per capita for black/hispanic in the city of Chicago were on par with those of caucasians in the city of Chicago, the overall murder rate of the city would be much lower.

32% black,
45% white of which 13% is white/hispanic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Chicago

Whether or not those numbers justify playing the race/culture card... too many other factors, IMO.

Saying that murder is a component of the culture of a race of people is racist and ignorant. Just as it would be stupid to say that being a serial killer or mass shooter is the culture of white people since the vast majority both are white. The reason certain races have higher incidences of crime is very complex and i'm not denying the disparities. Attributing it to culture is the problem.

 

[silicosys4]

Saying that murder is a component of the culture of a race of people is racist and ignorant. Just as it would be stupid to say that being a serial killer or mass shooter is the culture of white people since the vast majority both are white. The reason certain races have higher incidences of crime is very complex and i'm not denying the disparities. Attributing it to culture is the problem.

And that is a head-in-the-sand politically correct approach. Certain cultures are darn well more violent than others. To believe otherwise is to ignore reality.
Compare the Aztec vs Incan vs Mayan cultures to start with, Compare Bonobo to Chimpanzee cultures to each other if you want to get more primal. Compare the cultures in say, Rwanda, to say, Finland. (race aside, if you can bring yourself to compare a black culture to a white culture without bringing race into it)
Don't just pull the "you a racist!" card on people.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

First of all, it was the Chicago Police Department that provided the demographic breakdown of murders. We can hardly accuse them of racism for reporting the facts.

Now the classic debate in subjects like this is "nature versus nurture" -- are we what we are because we were born that way, or because of the effects of our culture, upbringing and education.

To say that Blacks (or any other ethnic group) have a higher murder rate because it is inherent in their genetic makeup is racism. Therefore we must come down on the "nurture" side of the argument. It is culture, not genes, that has produced this skewed picture of murderers.

It therefore follows that if we want to reduce the murder rate, we must change the culture.

 

[M-Cameron]

Again, i don't support gun control but this is an absurd argument. Equating the potential devestation a bow can cause with that of modern firearms is ridiculous. As if mass "bow shootings" are a realistic threat or drive by "crossbowings". It also implies that if all deaths can't be prevented then there is no reason to reduce them. My seatbelt doesn't gurantee i'll survive a crash but it certainly makes it more likely. There are valid arguments against gun control but the above aint one.

 

[Robert]

Sociology and criminology are not topics for THR and since this thread has veered hard in that direction we are done.