The editors of the Rocky Mountain News are spot-on in their analysis of the Darrent Williams murder – it isn’t the guns or their availablity, it is the cultural message that demands their use at the slightest provocation. You know, the glorification of the thug found in “gangsta culture”.

What makes someone spray a limousine with bullets even though he has no idea who might die? A "gun culture," answers The Denver Post, under the headline "Williams' murder a cowardly gun crime."

Suffice it to say that the murder of Darrent Williams would not have occurred, at least in the fashion it did, without a gun. But that fact in itself explains little. What is most horrifying about this crime was the killer's casual targeting of people he hardly knew or didn't know at all over what perhaps was a disagreement or a perceived slight - an example of "disrespect" that had to be avenged.

It may be "culture" at the bottom of this tragedy, all right - gangster culture. Criminal culture. Culture in which lethal violence is considered the accepted if not the anticipated response to, for example, a heated argument.

One need look no further than rap music to find this message reinforced day after day. Too many of my students show up at school in their “Scarface” shirts and claim that the Al Pacino movie exemplifies their philosophy of life. And if I hear one more story of a fight of a student getting into a fight with another kid because “he/she was talking mess about me”, I’ll surpass the million mark.

WeÂ’ve always had guns in this society, and we always will. What we didnÂ’t have was the message that violence and killing are the first response rather than the last and the mark of manhood. LetÂ’s eradicate that message, not eliminate a tool with many legitimate uses.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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