By Roger Caldwell
There is a crisis in America with AR-15 and guns, and the majority of the killing is done in the Black community. Blacks make up 70% of the gun homicide victims, and there appears to be nothing we can do.
There are 26 states where the governor has signed a bill allowing the carrying of concealed weapons in public without a government issued permit. Each state has different stipulations, but most have limited training and limited background checks. The Gun Violence Archive, an authoritative database on gun violence in America, is using its definition of a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are killed or injured by firearms.
The Gun Violence Archive recorded these incidents this weekend, from 5 p.m., on Friday until 5am on Wednesday across 13 states as well as Washington DC. The archive’s tally of mass killings over the 4th July weekend started in Washington DC, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland (twice), Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas (twice).
In most of these incidents the shooter(s) have not been arrested and the incident was a Black affair in the Black community. In the majority of the incidents there was a spray of bullets, or a drive by, and very few people are talking. The age did not matter; in Washington DC two children were injured, nine and 17 year-old, reported as non-life-threatening.
One of the youngest victims of the weekend was a 14-year old boy who was killed early on Wednesday in a shooting at a fourth of July block party on Maryland’s eastern shore. Six others were injured in the incident in Salisbury.
On the Fourth of July, President Joe Biden made a statement from the White House, “Our nation has once again endured a wave of tragic and senseless shootings in communities across America. We grieve for those who have lost their lives and, as our nation celebrates Independence Day, we pray for the day when our communities will be free from gun violence.”
Biden repeated his call for “meaningful, commonsense” gun control reforms including a renewed ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and an end to gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. Right now, Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed in a gun homicide than people in other high income countries.
Two people were killed and 28 wounded, including 15 children, in a mass shooting in Baltimore, Maryland on Sunday. Videos recorded at the scene showed teenagers scrambling to get away from the gunfire. In a statement the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, said: “In just a few days, two mass shootings in our beloved state have taken lives and ripped at the fabric of our communities.”
Late on Tuesday another outdoor party in Shreveport, Louisiana, exploded in gun fire, leaving three people dead and 10 wounded. Tabitha Taylor, a local council-woman said, “A family event that has gone on for years in our community have been disrupted by gun fire because somebody decided to pull their guns and do this. Why, why?”
The greatest fatality in a single incident over the long weekend was seen in Philadelphia, where five people were killed, and two children were injured. The suspect is in police custody and he lives in the community.
The majority of these killing and injures were from the Black community, and everywhere you look, it was Black on Black crime. Children are being slaughtered and mentally the shooters don’t care who is impacted.
No one knows why, but the community prays to the same God, and the shooters were taught to love each other from their parents. Black women, Black children, Black elders, and Black men must protect each other in our community with support from the police.
Another holiday has turned deadly, enough is enough. We no longer can let criminals disrupt our community, and there are no arrests.
