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Page 2 The Skanner January 20, 2016 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Opinion Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Dallas Tragedy Debunks Anti-Gun Control Myths Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor “W Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Arashi Young Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Oice Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2015 MERIT AWARDS WINNER The Skanner has received 20 NNPA awards since 1998 The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com e can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or pre- vent every senseless act of vi- olence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inac- tion. Surely, we can do better than this.” – President Barack Obama, Sandy Hook Inter- faith Prayer Vigil, 2012 One of the more unsettling revelations about the tragedy in Dallas is that the mental- ly unbalanced gunman was rejected, ater a background check, for membership in an extremist group, but was legally able to purchase a high-capacity assault rile. According to media re- ports, Micah Johnson was la- beled “unit for recruitment” among a network of extremist groups, including some desig- nated as “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yet within months of that rejection, Johnson was able to meet in a parking lot with a gun seller he contacted on- line, and take possession of a military weapon designed to slaughter human beings as quickly and eiciently as pos- Marc H. Morial President & CEO National Urban League sible. In what kind of a world do we live when hate groups that actually encourage violence against law enforcement of- icers are more circumspect than our current irearm safety laws? “ ons, domestic abusers, the vi- olently mentally ill are able to acquire irearms and the law does nothing to stop them. More than 90 percent of Americans support univer- sal background checks. Le- gally-required background checks have blocked more than two million gun sales to dangerous people since the system was instituted. Maybe Micah Johnson’s background would have slipped past the system. Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people and wounded 17 on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, The man who sold Johnson the AK- 47 said Johnson appeared normal during their 15-minute meeting The man who sold John- son the AK-47 said Johnson appeared normal during their 15-minute meeting — as though dangerous mental instability is written across someone’s face. “It’s my belief he would have passed a background check,” the man said. But it wouldn’t have mattered, not in Texas. Federal law requires only licensed gun dealers to conduct background checks. Millions of guns are sold each year online or at gun shows through private sellers. Fel- was banned from buying guns because a court found him severely mentally ill. But he passed a background check, because his records never made it into the system. Prior to the attack in Dal- las, each mass-shooting inci- dent in the United States has prompted a bizarre chorus calling for even more guns in our society. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” as the saying goes. Setting aside the impossibility of dis- tinguishing a “good guy” from a “bad guy,” there were plen- ty of people with guns at the scene of the Dallas massacre and not one of them was able to stop the sniper. The police were armed. About 30 of the marchers at the demonstra- tion where the attack took place were armed. Not one of them managed to stop Micah Johnson with a gun. Every modern study con- cludes that more guns equal more crime. Right-to-car- ry laws are associated with signiicantly higher rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape and murder. American children are sixteen times more likely than children that live in other high-income countries to be killed in gun accidents, with as many as 100 children dying each year. Our irearm safety system is broken — tragically, fatally broken. Lobbyists for the ire- arm industry hold our law- makers in an almost literal death grip, blocking common sense reform at every turn. Call your U.S. Congress mem- bers and demand action on gun violence. Learn the truth about gun violence in Amer- ica and educate your friends and family. And work for a nation that puts the safety of its citizens ahead of proits for the gun industry. www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2016 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Paciic NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds BE A PART OF THE CONVERSATION #SkNews Intellectual Honesty About Race and Criminal Justice Reform T here is an old adage that posits “The more things appear to change, the more they stay the same.” Once again, millions of Amer- icans are engulfed in what has become a reluctant national debate and dialogue concern- ing race and the urgency to reform the nation’s criminal justice system. Finding and identifying transformative remedies and solutions are long overdue. In the wake of the most re- cent fatal tragedies in Dal- las, Minneapolis, and Baton Rouge, there are renewed fer- vent calls for improving rela- tions between police oicers and the communities they are sworn to protect and serve. I believe these calls are being made in earnest, seeking con- clusive change. However, the underlying systemic reasons why these and other tragedies continue to happen are somehow rou- tinely avoided. There is a per- vasive fear to speak and artic- ulate the truth about race and the institutionalized devolv- ing impact of racism on all levels of the criminal justice system. To put it bluntly, there is too much intellectual dishonesty concerning the historical and contemporary role of race in America. In particular we Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. NNPA President and CEO need more intellectual hon- esty about why and how real reform of the criminal justice system should be achieved. We need remedies that ac- tually work to enable and to “ public chorus that bemoans the prolonged contradictions of this failed social system. I know that there are some preventative programs and initiatives that are producing positive results about which more people should be made aware. Criminal justice reform re- quires the coordinated and combined eforts and support of principled leaders in the private sector along with gov- ernment oicials, communi- There is a pervasive fear to speak and articulate the truth about race and the institutionalized devolv- ing impact of racism on all levels of the criminal justice system empower people to improve their quality of life without the debilitating and too oten death-rendering consequenc- es of a broken criminal justice system. Mass incarceration, prosecutorial misconduct, judicial inequality, racial pro- iling, and police brutality are all interrelated and intercon- nected in the counterproduc- tive web of the system named criminal justice. It is a system that lacks honesty, truth and integrity. Yet, my purpose here is to go beyond merely joining the ty organizations, and family members who are impacted. We should also acknowledge that poverty and economic insecurity feeds the pipeline to the jails and prisons in the United States. Acquiring a good education and training that provide a means of generating a sus- tainable income are also key factors that are necessary, if reform of our system of jus- tice is to be productive. Last year in Baton Rouge, ironi- cally, I was pleased to be on a panel about criminal justice reform at the 57th national convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Confer- ence (SCLC) founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We discussed the need for re-en- try programs for the thou- sands of ex-ofenders who are returning to our communi- ties across the nation. One such program I want to highlight, Project JumpStart in Baltimore, Md., is an efec- tive and eicient model to re- forming an important aspect of the criminal justice system: ofender re-entry workforce development. The construc- tion trades are a growing skilled-workers industry in most urban areas where there are high-paying job opportu- nities. JumpStart is Baltimore’s premier construction train- ing program. It is a 14-week skills training program in plumbing, carpentry and the electrical trade. Trainees also receive inancial literacy coaching as well as practical courses in mathematics as it relates to the construction in- dustry. More than 70 percent of the trainees actually go on to attain apprenticeships, li- censes, and high-wage jobs. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com
