Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. Today, Luke reflects on the parallels between the Newtown massacre and the daily carnage in African-American communities.
I'm saddened by the senseless murder of 20 kids and eight adults at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday. As an African-American who's seen too many innocent children gunned down by assault rifles in drive-by shootings, I feel Newtown's pain.
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For decades, gangbangers in Overtown, Liberty City, and other poor, predominantly black neighborhoods have relied on assault rifles, like the Bushmaster .223 rifle used by mass murderer Adam Lanza, to wreak havoc.
Between 2005 and 2006, 24 people under the age of 18 were gunned down in Miami-Dade County, including Sherdavia Jenkins, a 9-year-old girl from Liberty City struck down by a stray bullet from a high-powered rifle. It hasn't stopped.
In April, a drive-by at a North Miami Beach funeral home left two men dead and 12 others wounded, including a 5-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. Four months later, gunmen fatally shot 29-year-old Angelese Ladson and her unborn child in Miami Gardens. In between, 16-year-old Ron Jones was assassinated in Liberty City.
If the government can allow parents to block cable TV channels and websites to prevent kids from accessing adult content, and Gov. Rick Scott can tell people to pee in a cup to get food stamps, why is it so difficult to enact gun control laws?
Scott and other governors should require anyone who wants to buy a gun to submit to a drug and mental health test to prove they are competent to own firearms.
President Obama should be leading the charge to bring back the assault rifle ban that Bill Clinton championed and George W. Bush allowed to expire. No gun owner, whether interested in home defense or hunting, needs a machine gun that can cut a deer or a human in half.
The victims at Sandy Hook did not die in vain. In the African-American community, they are our heroes. Their deaths have finally shamed every politician, including Obama, who turned a blind eye to the proliferation of guns in our streets. The mainstream media is finally shining light on the obscene profits made by the companies making the assault rifles that have been cutting down kids in Liberty City and Overtown for decades.
That's why I feel Newtown's pain.
Follow Luke on Twitter: @unclelukereal1.
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