Is the interest in Newtown racial?

H

Horn6721

Hook'em
Something I never considered for one second. But a black friend sent a mass email asking why we as a country are so glued toTv coverage
and why is everyone calling for more gun laws when in one city alone many times more school kids and even babies are murdered each year every year
and with non registered guns. More school kids are murdered there EVERY single year than in all the so called mass shooting for last 10 years combined

His point is most of the kids murdered by guns are black and all these children were white

He asks where us the outrage> so far no one has answered him

but isn't it a relevant question?
Everyone is screamming about more gun control and how horrible this incident was

where is the outrage for the babies dying nearly every day from bullets from non registered guns>
Why doesn't BO speak for them?

so far no one answered the guy.
I don't have an answer either
 
This caught the nation's attention more than other incidents because it was 28 people (20 children) all at one time by one person. It was also at an elementary school which most older people consider to be a safe place. I hope and think that if 20 of my students, almost all Hispanic and black were killed, they would get the same attention from the media.

I will say that missing white children do seem to find their way onto the national news more often it seems.
 
It's clear that the number of children killed in the massacre is "statistically insignificant" measured against the country as a whole and I'm sure the few children saved by the gunman having to reload after shooting 13 rounds rather than thirty would be just a fraction of those gunned down before first responders arrived. But if you watch the parents and the cops, every one of those teachers and little murder victims were important human beings whose stories deserve telling. It's compelling, heart rending stuff that I honestly steer clear of.
 
I just wanted to add that the psychopath adds to the story from a news standpoint. 20 kids killed in a bus crash is a one or two day story. I will remember this until the day I die. Why? At the end of the day the loss that the parents feel is probably very similar.
 
When kids die in a bus accident, it's tragic but different. Every time we get in a bus, car or plane, deep down we realize that we could die in an accident. Only a tiny percentage of times does that happen, though. When you send your 6-yr-old to school, it never enters your mind that they might be gunned down in their classroom.

And when kids are killed in drive-by shootings, I feel so sad that they have to live in neighborhoods where there is drug or gang violence. It's not their fault but they are the ones who suffer.

When I heard the very first reports coming across the wires about the possible shooting in an elementary school, my first thought was some sort of domestic violence situation involving adults. I still cannot really wrap my head around what really happened.
 
If you have a mass shooting, it's going to get a lot of attention regardless of the race of the perpetrator or the victims. The big disparity is the between the news coverage associated with individual murders and kidnappings.

I hesitate to use the word "racism," because that suggests hateful motives, and I don't think that's at play. What is at play is the shock factor. The media and the public aren't surprised when murders and kidnappings happen in black and Hispanic neighborhoods because they happen so often that there's almost an expectation of such crimes. I think that blunts people's sensitivity to them. However, we don't expect murders and kidnappings to occur in white areas, so when they do, the media and the public are shocked and outraged.

Frankly, I think it's sad. I think the desensitivity of crime in the minority areas fosters a tolerance of crime in those areas and weakens the public's resolve to fight it. Furthermore, even if crime occurs in minority areas more often, that's no solace to the families of the victims. All they know is that their loved one is gone.
 
I would think that if a mentally troubled gunman burst into an elementary school full of Hispanic and/or black children and murdered large numbers of them, it would get equal press coverage.

The mass shooting of elementary school children is the event here. It is a new shocking low and just a horrific event. Trying to insinuate racism regarding the country's reaction says more about the person perceiving racial bias than it does about the media and people so troubled by this terrible event.
 
That email took on a life of its own
and I kinda Now understand my friends position.
I believe he is honest when he says he also was stunned at the news and feels for the parents.
I also believe him when he says it is pretty hypocrital to NOT be as stunned and outraged at children being murdered in his city.
He linked an NPR article that showed 700 kids, 700kids were shot in one year alone.
shotnot killed, only ?? 66 died.

Of course he is speaking as a gun owner and a black man but he is not pleased with his president that nothing ZERO has been done to help the school children in his town
and certainly his president never attended a memorial.

Of course even though he is black he tends to be more conservative than liberal and is I am sure a member of NRA


So while we are beating ourselves up to change laws for legal guns HOW can we ignore the murders of schoolkids that goes on daily in who knows how many cities?


Most of these kids who are murdered daily are not white poster kids.

he has sent emails to Jesse Al and even Rahm.
i really can see his point.
 
So we will set policy as a knee jerk reaction and all media outlets fawning the flames. Debate should not be set on inflammatory and reactive emotions. Debate should be ongoing with logical policy changes set with wisdom and facts.

And why will policy makers ignore the white elephant of mental illness in the room? Are they too stupid and ignorant to say that strict gun control will solve our problems?

Lanza could just as easily made 10 pipe bombs and thrown one each into every classroom on the hall. Then what?

The statistics I research say that hundreds of children die at the end of a firearm every year. Where was the outrage prior to Friday? Where was the debate in the mainstream media prior to Newtown?
 
newdoc
You make the exact same point Charles makes

Adn he is not a race card player
but he is nagry that all of a sudden everyone person is all up in arms ( intended) to ban some guns and control others
ONLY because , it seems to him, that white children were killed
when black kids are dying EVERY day in nearly every major city.

More people are killed in one city in one year by NON registered guns in than have been killed in " mass shootings" over a 10 year span.
 
Any honest observer should be able to admit that if the gunmen in these mass shootings mostly had, say, Muslim names or were mostly, say, African-American men, the country right now wouldn’t be confused about the causes of the violence, and wouldn’t be asking broad questions.
 
I challenge the assertion.

I would assume most children killed by guns are white. I couldn’t find the racial breakdown, but almost all children are killed in their own homes (with some being accidental shootings – check the CDC who keeps records on such things).

The national media also doesn’t cover the individual deaths of white children unless they are killed by their mothers. He may have a point if he can find some cases of black mothers killing their children and the national media not reporting on it… He may have a case if a mostly black elementary school was shot-up and not reported. The local media always covers black youth being shot by police, but they don’t spend as much time on criminal violence (white criminal violence too).

Media doesn't seem as interested in police killing white people. They also don't report black on black, black on white, or white on white crime. White on black murder is sometimes nationally reported - especially if the white person may have had a justifiable reason - or the situation looks ambiguous... Really the same issue when police kill black youth, too.
 
Gadfly
" I would assume most children killed by guns are white"
then you'd be wrong , at least as far at the city that my firend cites.
In 2009 700 children wee shot by guns in this city alone. care to bet how many were unlicensed?
and in this ONE city one in 10 homicides was under 16
and 88% overall were black
from school year 2008 to aug 2003 45 school children were gunned down and died.

This was ONE city. True it is the home of thre author of the email
but hundreds are being shot and many are dying every single year
Not some one time horrible incident. this goes on dat after day

where is the outrage? When will the Pres attend a memorial service for these slain children.
WHY is this ignored yar after year and in city after city?

As i said Charles is no race card player. He is more sconservative that I am
but he is right to ask why we are dweling so much on these kids dying and ignoring the hundreds of black dying every day from ILLEGAL guns
 
Anytime there are mass fatalities in a plane crash, which is extremely rare, we are deluged with coverage, analysis, and calls for aviation regulation and reform. Yet 100 people day *every single day* in car crashes, mostly one or two fatalities at a time. Where is the outrage, the mass emotional outpourings, and the calls for auto and highway reforms and regulations?

The disconnect is not driven by race. It's driven by the relative psychological impact of events that occur out of proportion to our usual expectations, further fueled by the modern 24-hour media circus.
 
Solving mental health issues is complicated and expensive. Frankly, Texas has made a financial decision that providing comprensive mental health services to dangerous psychotics like they do in many other states is just too expensive. State mental hospitals do proactively deal with the most obviously dangerous among the mentally ill. A few people get killed every year by folks identified as dangerous and whose family members had begged for state intervention. But while many are worrisome, only a small fraction actually create mayhem. We have pretty much chosen to let the dangerous psychotics self-identify through criminal actions and deal with them then.You spend an average of $100,000 on psychatrists and drugs on say another 10,000 or so "troubled" folks and pretty quickly you've spent $1 billion. With pressing concerns about public schools, colleges, highways, child protective services, prisons and the like, it's not easy coming up with that kind of money.
 
Zork
those stats were disturbing
even more so to realize how many years and years this killing has gone on
and knowing the majority of guns used were NOT registered

I really see My friends Charles, point
Bo looks like the worst kind of hypocrite, crying over the white kids and ignoring little black kids that are killed in his own city.
NO ONE is saying it was not horrific but why isn't it horrific enough in Chicago for BO to act?
Can he only muster tears for one sad act?
 
Well I think all of us on the board are intelligent enough to know there is no easy, fail-safe, politically viable way to prevent the possibilities of the Newtown Massacre nor the gun violence that is part of the everyday landscape in places like Chicago, LA, Dallas and Houston. But the politicians gotta say and do something because this horrific crime is melting hearts. It's not racists. It's just a way for many to get a much more personal connection to the violence. I identify with the Newtown parents and lots of people around me do as well. Maybe jounalists should do touching, heart wrenching stories about what's going on in the inner cities. Fox News already know the way there -- their cameramen were on hand all day when that paunchy, middle-aged beret clad black panther "intimidated" nice folks going to vote.
 
This isn't funny but I did laugh
I got this quote from BO's press coference today from my angry black man friend
"The president has vowed to use "whatever power this office holds" to safeguard the nation's children after Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. Twenty children and six adults were killed at the school by a gunman carrying an arsenal of ammunition and a high-powered, military-style rifle.'


As you can imagine he is not pleaed with BO. Safeguarding children?
really? has BO looked at chicago lately?
Why didn't he ' safeguard"those Chicagochildren before now.
BO might have saved some
 
NJH
edit to correct
I misread what you wrote and thought you were satying there had been mass shooting at an inner city school

I think the point actually is that knowing that 700 HUNDRED kids were shot in one city in one year
and I bet no one in here knew it
and we certainly didn't hear BO call out for action while wiping a tear away for the 70 who died
and that is an average year.

Why hasn't he called for action for those kids killed?
Jeep in mind that 700 was from 2009
hundreds more were shot in 10 11 and this year as well
in ONE city
 
Ok so I see where the statement was 700 kids were shot, not killed, and I found an article on Chicago stating almost 700 kids were shot in 2012, and about 10% of those died.
 
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