As Crisostomo Lopes was hauled into a police vehicle, minutes after he allegedly helped kill a 14-year-old boy, he shouted his gang’s name over and over again, police said yesterday.
The outburst, described by police, demonstrates the powerful grip of street gangs in some of Boston’s most troubled neighborhoods and the daunting task city officials face as they try to break their hold before the traditionally violent months of summer begin.
In the last moments of daylight Sunday, police said, Lopes, 20, grabbed Nicholas Fomby-Davis as the boy rode his brother’s moped down Bowdoin Street. Police said Lopes held the eighth-grader as an alleged fellow gang member, Joshua Fernandes, 16, shot the 14-year-old boy at least three times.
This shooting - perpetrated by a man and a teenager both too young to legally own a handgun in Massachusetts - is only the latest in a string of violence claiming the lives of Boston teens. Some are shot. Some are stabbed. Most have connections to gangs. Yet the Rosenthals of the world would have us believe that it is the availability of firearms that cause these deaths rather than a callous disregard for human life. They call for the repeal of the "gun show loophole", a meaningless non-sequitor in most states, a flat-out lie in Massachusetts, as some panacea for gun-related violence.
Still unaddressed are the root causes of the violence - we need to discover why someone picks up a gun and takes the life of a fourteen year old boy riding a scooter down the street, not where they bought the gun. Even assuming for a moment that we could take guns out of the equation entirely, does any rational person think that this murder would not have taken place? Is removing one tool - the firearm - going to magically cause gang members to stop initiating violence against those they deem to have disrespected them? Or are they just going to move on to different tools?
The list of items humans can use to cause mayhem, injury, or death on fellow humans is limited only by the imagination. We ignore the reasons why people kill, why we as a race are so violent and eager to lash out at the slightest provocation, why certain elements feel the need to react explosively at any and all slights in favor of blaming a chunk of steel. We remove blame from the human hand holding the gun and place it on the gun itself, imbuing the firearm with mind control properties and near-sentient abilities, as though the guns themselves were possessed and intent on killing. By taking responsibility away from the shooters, we ensure that there will be more shootings.
But hey, it makes a better soundbite to blame some mythical "gun show loophole" or "assault weapons" or "Saturday night specials" or any number of other tired bullshit excuses rather than address the all-too-human problems, right?
That is all.
7 comments:
Gun show Leupold, of course
"Menino is scheduled to meet with clergy today about the violence"
......No problem then.....all Fixed.....The Mayor has this under control........move along....nothing too see here......These are not the Droids we're looking for.
What is with all these anti-gun dorks using Clergy to somehow solve the gang problem?
I mean is there something I'm missing?
Are street-gangs also deeply religious and adamant church goers?
Is there something a priest can say to family members that will suddenly get them through to our little urban youths?
Well Weer'd Beard... they tend to believe in various fairytales, and the most sold fairytale book of all time is what?
They do it because most of them are just vicious animals who should have been put down years ago - and in any sane society would have been. Not to mention that most of them know that nothing much will happen to them.
emdfl
Guns, knives, cinder block, golf club, pantyhose, baseball bats, bathtub full of water, are among the things I've seen people murdered with over the years. It's not the inanimate object used, it's the intent that kills. Oh, I forgot to mention bare hands, people use those to kill too.
Oh, and here is something that you won't hear the bleeding hearts say. By the time a kid is 12 or 13, the pattern of his life is pretty much set. There are rare examples that you see stories about, but the reason you see stories about them is because they are so rare.
None of the well meaning social programs do much of anything but provide jobs for well meaning, but very naive people.
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