Just like the old weapons ban. Speaking in Chatanooga, Tennessee, Reverend Jackson deployed recycled rhetoric along the usual theme: black youth as victims of an indifferent, racist society. And evil gun makers. After calling for jobs creation in the black community through vastly decreased deficit spending and immediate tax reductions for businesses and private citizens (just kidding), Jackson “advocated a ban on assault weapons, saying the U.S. government stops the source of weapons for insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and should view inner-city gun crime similarly,” the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. “Kids in the ghetto don’t make semiautomatic weapons,” Jackson opined. “We’ve got to do something culturally about the easy access to guns and drugs.” [watch the video here] Not everyone on the sharp end agrees with the first class flyer’s take on crime reduction . . .
Hugh Reece, a community outreach specialist with the Hamilton County Coalition, said jobs, programs and education all are necessary to fight gangs and youth crime, but without police in the neighborhoods, none of it will work. “I just want them to increase the number of law enforcement officers out on the street,” Mr. Reece said. “To me, if there’s a larger presence of law enforcement that would deter what’s going on.'”
As for the assault (i.e. “modern sporting rifles”) ban, interim Police Chief Mark Rawlston reckons that would be an unnecessary landing at the wrong airport.
Chief Rawlston said there are “plenty of laws on the books to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Those laws haven’t been effective.”
The chief said he would like to see people convicted of gun crimes, even the unlawful carrying of a weapon, receive jail time.
