Why aren't others joining the call for gun control?

Why aren't others joining the call for gun control?
By LAURA WASHINGTON
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 13, 2007

It's summertime, and the livin' sure ain't easy. The temps are sizzling and the guns ubiquitous. It's a toxic and combustible mixture. Throw in the preachers, politicians and some cops and a whole lot of guns. Just don't throw in a match.
We anguish over school shootings like the massacres at Virginia Tech and in Red Lake, Colo. Every single day, dozens of shootings take down urbanites across America.

We have become blithely dulled by the headlines. A 10-year-old girl in Englewood shot to death at her own birthday party. During the last academic year, 34 Chicago schoolchildren were lost to gun violence. Early this month, three college students were shot to death in a Newark, N.J., schoolyard.

A few know the clock is ticking and they are doing what they can. Mayor Daley knows. Daley may be the Evil Enemy of Black People to some, but he is doing more than just about anyone to get guns off the streets. He has made gun control a signature issue and has vainly pushed to get anti-gun state legislation through the intractable and juvenile Illinois General Assembly.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and a Catholic priest, Father Michael Pfleger, the Evil Enemies of White People to some, are awaiting trial for mounting a protest outside Chuck's Gun Shop in south suburban Riverdale.

Now comes a report that nearly half of people murdered in the United States in 2005 were black. Most were ages 17 to 29, according to numbers released last week by the U.S. Justice Department.

While blacks make up about 13 percent of the nation's population, they comprise 49 percent of all murder victims. And the vast majority -- 93 percent -- were killed by African Americans. Most likely wielding firearms.

We have succumbed to what the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence calls "a culture of death." We are playing with fire.

The lefties and black radicals whine about the disproportionate number of black men in prison. Yet the jails are not big enough for all the trigger-happy crazies who are out on the street, like the gang-bangers warring over their corner crack franchises. The social justice types should instead aim their ire at the storefront merchants and dealers who push death in the name of the U.S. Constitution and the National Rifle Association.

The guns are aimed at all of us, and there's nowhere to hide. The child caught in the crossfire. The family argument that turns deadly because dad's got a pistol in the drawer. The drug dealer who's packing heat. The road rage that goes too far. The depressed high-schooler looking for revenge in the classroom. It all comes back to too many guns.

Jackson, Pfleger and Daley are doing their part. Where is everyone else?

Where are our elected officials? Where are our presidential wannabes?

During the last presidential election cycle, the Democrats shamelessly pandered to the deer hunters of Pennsylvania and Northern Michigan.

Gun control has rarely been mentioned during the interminable slew of debates in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election. It should be a signature issue.

Gun fever has ravaged our communities. We need a prescription, not a home remedy.