\u00a0Black males aged 15-25<\/a>\u00a0because that\u2019s the group that commits most of the murders.\u00a0 He\u2019s partly right.<\/p>\nNobody aged 15-20 \u2013 Black or White, Male or Female \u2013 should be carrying a pistol since it\u2019s against the law for anybody under 21 to buy, possess or carry a pistol. \u00a0Yes, take those guns away.<\/p>\n
And nobody aged 21-25 \u2013 Black or White, Male or Female \u2013 should be carrying a pistol in public without a Permit to Carry since that\u2019s also against the law.\u00a0 Yes, take those guns away, too.<\/p>\n
If we could enforce those two sets of existing laws, we\u2019d take illegally carried pistols out of the hands of people who shouldn\u2019t have them in the first place and that should take a bite out of gun crime. \u00a0It\u2019s a wonderful idea but, as always, the devil is in the details:\u00a0 how do you pick those people \u2013 and ONLY those people – out of a crowd?<\/p>\n
Maybe if we limit the focus to illegally carried pistols?\u00a0 Gun murders are mostly committed with pistols and pistols contain a big chunk of metal.\u00a0 Metal detectors set at reasonable sensitivity could find concealed pistols without singling out every single person for frisking.<\/p>\n
Anybody who sets off the metal detector gets waved aside for further processing.\u00a0 Show me your Permit to Carry and Driver\u2019s License and you\u2019re on your way.\u00a0 Minimal intrusion.<\/p>\n
Set off the metal detector and no Permit to Carry?\u00a0 Voluntarily show me the leg brace that set it off or wait here for police to frisk you. \u00a0Slightly more intrusive, might be ways to mitigate it (state-issued \u201cmetal plate in head\u201d card gets you through without frisk).<\/p>\n
Probably only install them at large gathering places like Vikings stadium, shopping malls, Super Target and nightclubs in downtown Minneapolis . . . but if society wants to get serious, the Mayor has at least given us food for thought.\u00a0 We have the technology.\u00a0 Do we have the willpower?<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Joe errs a bit – in most states, 18 year olds can own guns, and in many they can get permits (although not Minnesota, where a 20 year old military veteran can come home from a year in Afghanistan, or from driving a nuclear submarine, and not get a permit). For better or worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Former New York Mayor Bloomberg suggests we take guns away from\u00a0Black males aged 15-25\u00a0because that\u2019s the group that commits most of the murders.\u00a0 He\u2019s partly right. Nobody aged 15-20 \u2013 Black or White, Male or Female \u2013 should be carrying a pistol since it\u2019s against the law for anybody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51376,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51375\/revisions\/51376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}