The Why of the Guns

Why you're safer in Kyiv than Atlanta

Guns have replaced drugs as the tool of systemic racism.

When I was young drugs were effective at this. Push drugs on young black people who are unemployed and feeling hopeless. Arrest the black people doing the drugs. Toss them in jail and they’re not only slaves (for the duration of their sentence) but non-voters for life. It worked.

But as white folk started getting sentenced, and as black families learned better, you needed a new mechanism.

Lax gun laws are the mechanism.

White exurban men fetishize guns as protection from urban blacks. That’s why they’re walking around donut shops with AKs around their shoulders. They send the message that “if I don’t like the way you look, you’re dead.”

For the underclass, guns represent temptation. Temptation to commit a crime. Temptation to shoot anyone you dislike – your dad, your kid, your neighbor. Much of today’s black-on-black crime is gun crime.

But how do you police the underclass when everyone has a gun? You get a bigger gun. You get body armor. You become RoboCop. You also recruit for people who want to become RoboCop. No more Adam-12, no more Car-54, no more Mayberry. No more talking to citizens. If you’re a cop, you’re a soldier. It’s the only way to survive.

You can see this play out in what Atlantans are calling “Cop City.” Cop City is a huge new police training facility southeast of town. Big enough to practice riot control, car chases, the works. Big enough to train cops across the metro area. A playground for RoboCops.

Without all the guns Cop City would not be necessary. The recruitment, training, and policing it represents are occupation. But if anyone you meet, on the street or in a car, could be holding a gun pointed at your head, you have to be ready.

This escalation of fear encourages police to shoot first and ask questions later, then answer “I was in fear for my life.” More people get arrested, more people get felonies, more people go to jail, slaves while inside, non-voters forever. Then notice who is being arrested.

This is how Jim Crow rolls on in the 21st century. Yes, it’s about the guns. But the guns are about the racism. If my fellow men weren’t so damned racist, so scared of “the other,” they wouldn’t be getting killy, fewer people would be getting killed, and de-escalation could begin.

As it is, you’re safer in Kyiv.