By
David Muhammad
“Violence
is as American as apple pie” has become
a popular saying. America has more violent
crime per capita than any other industrialized
nation in the world. Homicides, shootings,
assaults, rapes, domestic violence and school
violence are all far too prevalent in cities
across the nation. The extreme amount of guns
available legally and illegally is daunting.
The excessive portrayal of violence in the
media in movies, TV shows, music, magazines,
news shows and especially in video games is
extraordinary. We are surrounded — bombarded — by
messages of violence.
Typical
young people growing up in the Bay Area may go to school every day listening
on their iPods to hip-hop that is littered with references to violence. Once
at school, they may witness numerous fights and be in close proximity to students
with knives and guns. In class, they learn about the world’s history of
war. At the end of the day, they come home to watch television with constant
scenes of violence, even in cartoons, or to play video games, many of which display
some of the most extreme acts of violence. Many young people frequently hear
and witness violence in the community and may even experience violence in the
home. When they want a break from reality and go to the movies, it is most likely
a violent film. Violence engulfs them.
This scenario, which is probably more common than exception,
is played out by millions of children across the country. What type of behavior
would we expect from such children?
The example their government gives them is
to exact revenge through the most violent means possible. The same federal government
that condemns street violence, as it should, engages in more senseless violence
than anyone else. The same government that provides pitifully minimal resources
to help combat street violence pours hundreds of billions of dollars into unjust
wars. In the immortal words of rapper Tupac Shakur, “they got money for
wars, but can’t feed the poor.”
No wonder then that the government
allows the sale and distribution of untold amounts of handguns, automatic guns
and other high-powered weapons that have no use other than vicious violence.
Guns, mostly handguns, are by far the number one means of death for homicide
victims in most inner cities in the U.S.
The statistics are glaring: According
to the Centers for Disease Control, American children are more at risk from firearms
than the children of any other industrialized nation. In 2006, firearms killed
no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France, 153
in Canada and 5,285 in the United States. Between 1979 and 2001, gunfire killed
90,000 children and teens in America.
Every day, more than 80 Americans die from
gun violence. The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12
times higher in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized countries combined.
Likewise, American kids are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11
times more likely to commit suicide with a gun and nine times more likely to
die from a firearm accident.
The portrayal of violence and the access to guns
makes for a deadly combination that is resulting in enormously high rates of
homicide, shootings and assaults. This is an issue that goes far beyond any individual
city or local area. This is a national problem that is complex and complicated.
If money and attention could be diverted from the undue violence in Iraq and
refocused on solving the problems of violence on the streets of America, we could
probably begin to see a change in the decades-old problem this country faces — or
would we then no longer be America?
