Just for the record, gang violence is not the main cause of gun homicide.

[DanTex]

Cross-posted from GD. The "it's just gang versus gang" talking point is making the rounds again, so it's good to have the facts clear.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024572454

About 12% of all homicides in the US are gang related. Since about 2/3 of all homicides are gun homicides, that means that, at most, around 18% of all gun homicides are gang-related. In other words, even if we got rid of all gang violence in the US, our homicide rate would still be much higher than any other first-world nation. It's the guns, not the gangs.

The total number of gang homicides reported by respondents in the NYGS sample averaged more than 1,900 annually from 2007 to 2011. During the same time period, the FBI estimated, on average, more than 15,500 homicides across the United States (www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1). These estimates suggest that gang-related homicides typically accounted for around 12 percent of all homicides annually.

https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Survey-Analysis/Measuring-the-Extent-of-Gang-Problems

[Scootaloo]

1. But... but... Crips! Bloods! Salvadoreans!

Who will we fear will invade our homes and violate our blonde blue-eyed Aryan daughters, if not the "thugs," "hoods" and "homeboys" of these vast and unstoppable criminal empires?!

[Scuba]

2. Yet when children shoot each other it's because they're drug dealers. Read it right here on DU.

[billh58]

3. But gang gun violence

is a time-honored NRA/ALEC talking point (i.e., dog whistle for black, hoodie-wearing, loud music playing, thugs). If we could only eliminate the root causes of gang violence and improve mental health care, we wouldn't have a "gun violence" problem, they say. Easy access to guns is the cure, they say, and not the problem. An armed society is a polite society, they say. Widespread concealed carry of handguns is a proven deterrent to crime, they say.

"They" = right-wing, NRA, ALEC, Fox News, Koch Brothers, Rand Paul, Second Amendment absolutists, etc.

[DanTex]

4. "Root causes" and "enforce the existing laws" are all just GOP excuses to do nothing.

Since when have any NRAers actually promoted any policies that would address things like poverty? And they also do everything they can to weaken laws and enforcement to make the existing laws as ineffective as possible.

[billh58]

5. The right-wing always strives to

control the conversation with cherry-picked "statistics" and outright lies, while suppressing the truth:

"How The NRA Killed Federal Funding For Gun Violence Research"

http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-nra-kills-gun-violence-research-2013-1

Their twisted statistics get repeated on a Liberal Democratic discussion board as fact and truth, while they hide behind the Holy Second Amendment as if it gives gun fetishists a license to spew lies and half-truths, and to promote death and misery.

Second Amendment absolutists are a very vocal right-wing minority of American gun owners, and exemplify all that is evil about violent right-wing extremism.