I came across a telling statistic about the two Americas that Brian McLaren talks about in his discussion of the recent George Zimmerman verdict in Florida (see the posting below). You can understand why there are at least two distinctly different views about the proliferation of guns (and their use beyond sport and home defense). Consider the following:
According to the US Center for Disease Control and
Prevention a white person in this country is five times more likely to commit
suicide with a gun than to be shot with one.
If you’re an African American in this country then you are five
times as likely to be shot and killed by someone than to use a gun to kill
yourself.
In other words, if you are white, the gun you own for defense poses a much greater risk to you than a gun in the hands of someone else in your neighborhood. If you are black, the gun in the hands of someone else in your neighborhood poses a much greater risk to you than the gun you may own for your defense.
Let's make it as simple as possible: if you are black and healthy and whole then guns poses a real risk to your life in the hands of someone else. If you are white and healthy and whole then guns don't pose a significant risk to you at all (since only unhealthy, broken folks are tempted to take their own lives).
No wonder people look at what happened on a dark street in suburban Florida in very different ways.
