wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Turns out the Major was not on the terrorist watch list. But somebody really wants to use that list as a gun-ban list.

I’m speaking from experience hjs.
I went through what I thought was a pretty good public school system in VA, but we still had issues with teen pregnancy, drugs, fights, etc. It wasn’t East New York or the South Bronx in the ‘80s, but there were serious issues for the area. And people with whom I went to high school were on baby number two before graduation, ended up in jail in their 20s, selling drugs on the street corner, or dead. (Conversely, there were also sons and daughters of professionals and tradesmen, students who went on to college or vocational training, and student who went on to serve in the armed forces from the same high school)
It is all too easy for people to say “look where I came from” and blame that for their lack of responsibility or lack of initiative. What is less easy is what my great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents did and take responsibility despite all that was against them. Or, are you saying being a newly freed slave or coming from a neglected segregated school is a level playing field?
This issue is beyond “if only there were better”. First the community needs to take full advantage of what is already being offered before demanding more that will simply be neglected.

voter
some people come with a better tool kit.
if there were ever a level playing field i might agree with u. sounds like we should blame kids for having a bad parent, wait 20 years and blame the next kids for having new bad parents.

just think, if we have a better public ed system and parents would understood education is the only thing kids should be concerned with and a level playing field, think how many more entrepreneurs we would have living in our society. instead urban youth fuels prison growth and the rest of the poor are warehoused on some of the best real estate in the nation.

so play the blame game as u wish. but where does that get us?

It’s not let them eat cake, it is that there is a point when you have to look within instead of playing the blame game of what someone else hasn’t done for you or what others has done to you.
My great-great-grandparents were slaves; that was not an excuse to behave as the youth of today behave once they were freed. My great-grandparents and grandparents were treated like second-class and my parents attended segregated schools; that was still no excuse.
The guests on the show (for the time I could listen) never criticized the community, everything else was to blame. Once the community takes both responsibility and action more than “blah blah blah”, then come back to me and say what’s lacking.
There are children that come from the same environment as the gangbanger, drug addicts, and the single-parent households (not implying this is a list of equivalents) that actually do care about education and themselves and go on to make something of their lives so don’t pretend that the alternate lifestyle a given. It’s just easier to lay blame than take responsibility.

voter
i AGREE let them eat cake. i'm still paying off my hummer and the price of oil is going up!!

hjs
People with jobs don’t have time to be outraged, they’re too busy paying for the police and DAs trying to clean up this mess and paying for the prisons and the morgues that deal with the aftermath.
Maybe it’s a heal thyself moment… But alas, it is not because the reverend blames the movies, and the Google, and the executives with their rap music instead of the deficit of responsibility in the community. The journalist blames the schools that the people who are working on this “day of outrage” are paying taxes to keep open and all of these other externalities instead of stating the reality of the issue. Until the affected community gets its house in order and says ENOUGH (and actually acts on it instead of bi**hing and moaning), nothing will happen.
I’m sick of hearing how I need to do more to lead a horse to water and then get blamed because it refuses to drink.

john 6

seems to be a good word : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/funeralized

look before u leap next

John from the office: No, he will just charge you with more fees on your money, change the terms of your financial agreements on a moment's notice and redline your neighborhood making your real estate investments worthless.......

Armed criminals in NYC have nothing to fear from the law abiding, because almost all NYC citizens can't legally carry guns.
The Sullivan Law has protected muggers from their victims since 1911.
Sullivan represented a dock district, and many of his constituents were muggers. Sullivan was leader of a notorious Irish gang. Their criminal work was impeded by the fact that citizens were arming themselves before going to that bad neighborhood, thereby making robbery a dangerous business. Sullivan wanted to protect his criminal constituents from armed victims, and his law has made New York safe for robbers ever since.

23/hmmm, safe to say that the church of wall street is not doing its job either.

and let's not forget the gangsters with a foot in both worlds, not that i'm dying to go here, but many billions are pillaged or simply evaporated thanks to richard parsons/aol; stan o'neal/morgan stanley; franklin raines/FNM.

A Banker will not hit you over the head for your wallet.

People got on the terror watch list simply by criticizing George Bush. There is no transparency to how one gets on, no judicial finding involved, and no way off it once you are on it. They have proposed putting all Ron Paul supporters on it. So, for the Government to ban guns, it might just prohibit everyone on the watch list from having a gun, and then put all gun owners on the watch list.
That's why gun ban advocates want to use the watch list as a gun ban list.

John from office: What about the underlying criminality on Wall Street in the wider world?

Any movement with "leaders" like Al Sharpton is in trouble. What a sad legacy to MLK.

This reverend sounds like a fraud also. Why is there an underlying criminality in the black community.

Lack of ethics.

Comment on the reason there is a spotlight on violence now:

The guest hit the nail on the head bringing up the economic crisis as part of the reason people want to talk about violence right now, when they were not that concerned a few years ago. I think many people left the unsafe neighborhoods when they were able to buy a house somewhere else on the bad mortgages. After the bust they had to come back. After tasting the good life without gunfire and death in the streets you want that everywhere.

How can an officer in the United States Armed services be on a terror watch list...that is utterly insane; was it political correctness?

What about all of the financial violence that the banks undertake against us everyday with our tax dollars? People resort to violence when their voices are snuffed out. Gun violence is just the most visible violence in our society because it dramatically ends someone's life. I agree with many of the posts and this is a very shallow conversation.

Jobs with living wages, and education to qualify kids for them. Almost no one picks up a gun when they feel they have a viable alternative.

Personal experience with underreporting of violent crime (downcoding): About two years ago I reported an incident as a murder attempt in which I was violently attacked by three people, got away, and ended up in the emergency room. The police report listed that incident as "harassment." I sympathize with their pressure to "make the numbers look good" but don't believe the NYC crime statistics any more.

It is not fair to blame the community or the parents. There are simply too many guns on our streets and this can be traced directly to Congress and their unwillingness to stand up to the NRA and pass sensible gun control laws. Those who speak of moral breakdown should look at Congress. Congress must stand up and not blame communities.
We have good laws in NYC but the guns come from States with lax laws.
The situation is out of control and Congress does nothing! That is OUTRAGEOUS!

Do you really think that taking violence out of movies is going to solve problems like poverty and racism?

John, is right on the money. Sharpton is a fraud, Look up Freddy's Fire, where Sharpton Caused the death of three individuals. The Black Church is not doing its job.

Outrage needs to be directed at parents who do a poor job of parenting, and politicians, both majority and minority, who lack the guts to tell these parents that they need to parent their children and not be their friends, and if they're not up to the task do not have them!

It's the MTVvideogames!

I'm outraged that this guy keeps blaming Hollywood.

I am disgusted. Like Rev.Daughtry I would blame the society, but unlike the Reverend I don't have to look in the mirror. I find the shallowness of the discussion itself truly repulsive.
The problem is much deeper, but Americans, including so called "religious leaders" don't know that. Maybe, maybe, everyone should just stop spending their worthless, empty lives kissing up and kicking down and start transforming this barbaric Social Darwinist society into something civilized with universal health care, DIGNITY in the workplace and affordable EDUCATION.
dr anna

Some of the defendants in the Bronx shooting were out on bail for previous gun possession arrests. Danger to the community is one of the key factors in granting bail. If kids with .40 S&W automatics (a lot more firepower than the cops' 9mm Glocks) aren't a threat to the community, I don't know what is. If we can't keep dangerous gun felons in jail awaiting trial, after we catch them, how can we blame anyone else for our predicament. What are our DA's and judges doing?

"Day of Outrage" during the work day, what if i have a job.

the palestinian gunman who shot 7 people on the empire state building observation deck in 1997 came into this country from 2 weeks before he legally bought his gun in florida with no residency, no permanent address and the premeditation to commit an act of terror.

now these gun dealers are claiming they'll lose money if they can't make these sales?

Reverend used the word Furneralized, proof of the lack of leadership and intellect with African American and Latino leaders.

The fault lies with Parents who do not monitor their children. Also there is a lack of leadership here. Look at Diaz, talking to gang leaders. The reverend also represents the lack of leadership. The fault is not with the system, it is with the home. Where are the parents.

(Deafening silence from The National Pistol Association)

Definitely the gun show loophole needs to be stopped, but WHERE ARE THESE KID'S PARENTS!!!
Great role models like violent and misogynist hiphop and video games don't help.

Outrage is certainly warranted. It makes no sense to direct outrage in any other direction if you don't begin with the people shooting, who are the acting moral agents in this story.

The idea that Hollywood is to blame for violence, instead of poverty or education or gun laws or drug laws, is so ridiculous. That's usually the line of some crazy Senator, not from someone who actually deals with this stuff.