Krull asked: So Mike, is there a current bent to the racism and firearms issue, or are we only talking American History again?

The story I posted

NY Man Guilty in Death of White Teen

By FRANK ELTMAN

The Associated Press
Sunday, December 23, 2007; 3:30 AM

Was from December 23, 2007. Two days ago. So, yes, there is a current bent to this matter. This story is from 2 days ago, so it's historical, but it's pretty recent history, and the story is that a black man exercising a right to self-defense of his home and family, in much the same way that a white man in your post from LA defended his home and family, and in a much less aggressive way than a white man in TX shot and killed two people of color who were burglarizing a neighbor's home, but the black man in the NYT story was indicted and convicted of manslaughter for the shooting death of a white teenager who had been in an altercation of some sort with the black man's son at a party earlier that night. The altercation apparently ended with the black teenager going home and the white teenagers and his friends coming to the black family's home to continue the altercation. That's pretty aggressive.

The facts of this case suggest that a black man killing a white teenager who is perceived to be a threat is much more likely to be indicted, convicted, jailed for a crime than a white man who kills a black teenager. If you think that is not the current state of race, self-defense, and the justice system I challenge you to find a story where the roles are reversed. No hypotheticals, a white man indicted and convicted for a crime of shooting a black teenager who is perceived to be a threat by the white homeowner.

The racism in this self defense matter is current and sounds wrong to me. If it's ok for a guy in TX to take out after two burglars and shoot them down for burglaring a neighbor's home, it ought to be ok for a black man to display a firearm against a group of white teenagers who have followed his son home to continue an altercation. The fundamental aggression appears to be on the part of the white teenagers who followed a black teenager to his home to continue an altercation.  Should the black homeowner have called the police?  Yes, I think so, but I am white.  I will acknowledge that black americans may not feel that they will be protected or respected when they engage with law enforcement.  Does the name Rodney King ring a bell?  This is not ancient history.  The story of this conviction is two days old. 

Krull wrote: From what I have read, blacks use firearms for murder more than whites.

Links please. Where have you gathered the statistics? Generally accepted blog ethics call for links to the referenced materials, simply repeating something that you read is a potentially circular reference without any basis in fact. I refer you to this post by Sarah on blogging ethics:

Blogging Ethically

Submitted by Sarah on Wed, 09/20/2006 - 9:05pm. Rebecca Blood has a book out titled The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog.

The section I am most interested in, Weblog Ethics, is available online through her site. She proposes six rules for online publishers:

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
6. Note questionable and biased sources.

The whole article is well worth reading, Ms. Blood clarifies each of these rules.

Because I sometimes write about controversial subjects, especially concerning the world of white supremacists, I want to do so as cleanly and clearly as possible, even if I also apply some humor.

Krull wrote: Also, blacks kill whites more than whites killing blacks. This is total homicides not just with firearms.

I need to see these statistics. Right off the bat I suspect the numbers are skewed by the matter of charges, convictions etc that I have already cited, the fact that a black man is much more likely to be prosecuted for "killing" a white person, where a white person who "defends" himself in an event where a black person dies is likely not to be identified as having "killed" anyone. Again, this is why it is important to see the stats and be able to check the validity of the data.

Krull wrote: The racism & firearms link is just another angle by the anti-gunners to demonize guns and gun owners, IMO.

Well, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but I will point out that I am strenuously on record in support of the right to bear arms. It's right there in the second amendment of the Bill of Rights. I am very committed to all of our constitutional rights. Every one of them, including the right to bear arms. This discussion for me is about the relative safety if a person chooses to keep a weapon in the home for self defense. I think it's a bad idea unless you follow the AAP guidelines and following the guidelines can slow you down at getting the weapon at ready if you are ever in a situation where you need the gun in a great hurry. Luckily for all of us, it is statistically very rare that a person in our communities needs a weapon in a hurry for self defense, and the relative risk to family members from an accidental shooting is much higher than the self defense occurence.

I have been outspoken in my defense of the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge and the families at Mt Carmel who were targeted by the FBI. I believe that these sort-of-right-wing folks,with whom I might not agree on many subjects, had the right to be left alone and our federal government chose to entrap, attack, and shoot them instead of leaving them alone. That's where I am coming from. No interest in demonizing Randy Weaver or David Koresh even though they each chose to own more weapons than I think makes any sense. They should have been left alone, they were minding their own business and the Feds stepped on them. I don't like that.

So, I for one, have no interest in demonizing guns or gun-owners. I do have an interest in public safety, good risk analysis. The ability to rationally identify relevant facts, to weigh evidence, come to generally good conclusions and plans of action are in all of our best interest. If we simply react irrationally to fear and fear-mongering, we can be easily manipulated to give away too many of our rights, like the fourth and fifth amendment protections, we can be stampeded into wars of aggression against countries who pose little or no threat to us, we can guarantee generations of random violence by the victims of our misguided foreign policy against ourselves and our descendants.

The question for me is can people be rational and reasonable? Can they review facts and draw appropriate conclusions? I work on furthering rational and reasonable analysis out of love for my grandchildren (and yours, if you have grandchildren) and a hope that I can leave them a better world if I speak my mind.

STUDY: BLACKS WHO KILL WHITES ARE MOST LIKELY TO BE EXECUTED

COLUMBUS , Ohio – Blacks convicted of killing whites are not only more likely than other killers to receive a death sentence – they are also more likely to actually be executed, a new study suggests.

But the findings showed that African Americans on death row for killing nonwhites are less likely to be executed than other condemned prisoners.

David Jacobs

“Examining who survives on death row is important because less than 10 percent of those given the death sentence ever get executed,” said David Jacobs, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

“The disparity in execution rates based on the race of victims suggests our justice system places greater value on white lives, even after sentences are handed down.”

This apparently is the first study to examine whether the race of murder victims affects the probability that a convicted killer gets the ultimate punishment, Jacobs said.

He conducted the study with Zhenchao Qian, professor of sociology at Ohio State, Jason Carmichael of McGill University and Stephanie Kent of Cleveland State University. Their results appear in the August 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review.

The study examined outcomes of 1,560 people sentenced to death in 16 states from 1973 to 2002. These 16 states were chosen because they had the complete data that the researchers needed for the study.

Other research has shown that the great majority of those sentenced to death have their sentences overturned in appeal, Jacobs said. But little is known about the factors that lead some condemned prisons to be executed.

There is more than a two-fold greater risk that an African American who killed a white person will be executed than there is for a white person who killed a non-white victim.

“The fact that blacks who kill non-whites actually are less likely to be executed than blacks who kill whites shows there is a strong racial bias here,” Jacobs said. “Blacks are most likely to pay the ultimate price when their victims are white.”

Hispanics who killed whites were also more likely to be executed than were whites who killed non-whites, the study showed. But the risk of execution were not as strong for Hispanics who killed whites as they were for blacks who killed whites.

The study also reinforced findings by Jacobs in previous studies. He found that the likelihood of a legal death penalty was greater in states with higher proportions of black residents, an ideologically more conservative population, and in states where there was greater support for Republican candidates.

In the most recent study, Jacobs finds that execution probabilities increase in states along with the population of African Americans, up to a point. But when the population of blacks reaches about 16 percent of the population, executions start to decrease. Probably at that point, African Americans have enough votes and political influence within a state to reduce the number of executions, Jacobs said.

Various other political and state-level factors also played a role in the use of the death penalty in the states studied. States with more conservative citizens were more likely to execute, as were states that had higher percentages of voters who supported Republican presidential candidates.

“Republican presidential candidates often run on law and order platforms, so it is not surprising that the success of these candidates goes along with support for the harshest punishment,” he said.

“Overall, we found that our justice system is not colorblind, even after offenders are put on death row,” Jacobs said. “White lives are still valued more than black ones when it comes to deciding who gets executed and who does not.”

The study was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

#

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

Mike,

I noticed after your post that the link I had made wasn’t there. I guess I’m doing something wrong, as this happened with a previous post. Anyway, some of the data I was referring to is below. Your comment where you mention the data I will present likely is bad data even before you have seen it. This is what Gug did in an earlier post and effectively gutted any attempts by me to attempt satisfy your desire to see lots of data and/or studies. I’m confident you and others will attack the data, and so it will go. So I have no interest in engaging in that kind of exchange. You may have the time or desire to get deeply immersed in a discussion at that level. I have better things to do with my time, certainly if it will always end up being a "my data is better than your data" discussion.

Gug chose to go off on a negative critique about one of the studies I posted and how it was faulty because it didn’t take into account social issues. Jim found fault in the study, but didn’t produce a study to refute the study I posted, citing only his opinion. For all we know social issues may not have changed the study at all. In the same post by Jim, he posted half truths about the data as well, which I find interesting given his comments about anecdotes are lies by omission. Then he was very colorful with his language claiming the author of the study was "playing fast and loose with the numbers", again opinion, no data to back it up. I deleted the post because I'm not going to play that game. If you want to disagree with a study, you need to produce a study that proves your point. And the study you produce needs to similar enough that it has value for your argument.

As far as guns and racism, I don’t see the link. Guns and gun owners aren’t the problem. It seems the racism piece is societal, and guns are just a tool. If a study was done about beatings, or stabbings the results would likely be the same with respect to race. So I don’t buy that guns are the problem. Guns are merely a tool for bad men to do bad things, just like DV or armed robbery.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

"We Israelis sacrifice ourselves for our continued existence, our enemies sacrifice themselves for our destruction."--Unknown--

there was nothing about your critique that was science. It was speculation and opinion.

I would think if one is encouraged to provide data and substance to support a post, one would do the same when disputing a study.

"We Israelis sacrifice ourselves for our continued existence, our enemies sacrifice themselves for our destruction."--Unknown--

For perspective, 80% of Americans are white and 13% are black.

• 44.6% of all homicides in 2005 were white-on-white.
• 42.2% were black-on-black.
• 8.8% were black-on-white.
• 3.2% were white-on-black.

While we're at it.  Here's the breakdown of "justifiable" homicides:

• White-on-white 36%
• Black-on-black 40%
• Black-on-white 3%
• White-on-black 17%

It would appear that 13% of the population are responsible for nearly 50% of the homicides. And 80% of the population are responsible for nearly the other half. I also read that whites and blacks kill their own race more than the other race, but blacks kill whites more than vice versa. Wouldn't murder be the ultimate form of racism?

As for your trust me comment, not likely.

You and Mike come from a clearly hard leftwing perspective, and the objectivity you value will always be in question with me in your postings.

"We Israelis sacrifice ourselves for our continued existence, our enemies sacrifice themselves for our destruction."--Unknown--

the justification is lacking, like I'm guessing you think it is.

Let's just say that if homicides are an indication of criminal activity within a group, then blacks MAY commit a disporportionate amount of the crime. And when they are caught, they may resist, either civilian or LE intervention. That resistance may require the application of deadly force.

This is why I don't trust you or Mike. You guys take 1 + 2 and come up with 34.

Of course, I'm trying to guess your point as it's far from clear.

"We Israelis sacrifice ourselves for our continued existence, our enemies sacrifice themselves for our destruction."--Unknown--

you are most definitely correct, I don't know you, have never met you and likely my opinion of you is skewed. But the persona you present here is as I mentioned above. Just calling it as I see it.

It's likely you have an opinion of me running around in your head too.

I think you and I got off on a bad foot with your "don't feed the troll" stuff.

And you are likely correct, I probably need to chill.

This topic, my history here with you all led to bad ju-ju.

So I will chill.

As for the slander comment. It would likely be libel in this state. Since my comment had neither intent nor malice attached to it, I'm thinking not. But I do get your point, and I will back off.

"We Israelis sacrifice ourselves for our continued existence, our enemies sacrifice themselves for our destruction."--Unknown--

"We Israelis sacrifice ourselves for our continued existence, our enemies sacrifice themselves for our destruction."--Unknown--