…racist. That’s right, those who oppose Barack Obama’s plan to rein in gun violence through executive fiat are racist. They’re probably also sexist, ageist, capitalist, and a whole bunch of other “-ists.”
Campus Reform notes that a professor at the University of Notre Dame published an op-ed in The New York Times just before the New Year that linked permissive gun laws to racism.
Prof. Gary Gutting, who teaches philosophy, argues that “high exposure to guns in largely poor black neighborhoods along with low restrictions on gun ownership permeates a culture of racism.”
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Gutting, in an effort to rally the troops to impose Draconian laws on gun ownership, argues that if you’re not already driven to tears by the gun-related deaths of innocent children, then at least the idea of exploiting poor blacks will be enough to inspire action.
If we fail to oppose with equal passion and vigor the relentless political pressure of (mostly white) gun advocates, we force a large number of black citizens to live with the constant threat of gun violence. We’re in effect letting the Second Amendment trump the Fourteenth Amendment, implicitly preferring the right of gun ownership to the right of black people to live free from fear.
But what about the those “who dismiss gun violence as a ‘black problem’ since it’s often a matter of blacks attacking other blacks”? Gutting’s response to those people (aka the “gun lobby”) is that he has no response and sees no compelling reason to respond:
But here I’m not concerned with refuting gun-lobby arguments. I’m speaking to those who already agree that we need stronger gun laws and who realize that when our fellow citizens are dying and there’s something we can do about it, it’s morally vacant to say it’s their problem. Hatred of racism should be a major motivation for the gun control movement. This will give it the vigor and persistence needed to overcome the gun lobby’s passionate fantasy that citizens with guns protect us from tyranny.
“Hatred” of racism? And here I thought it was only conservatives who are guilty of hatred.
