Is there anything more elitist and racist than the anti-gun lobby’s demonization of cheap handguns? This article in Slate mouths the typical platitudes:
Not surprisingly, it was the makers of Saturday Night Specials — poorly made guns selling for $35-$150, which frequently ended up in the hands of criminals — who were most culpable.
If cheap handguns aren’t for sale, only rich people will have guns, and who really needs them more, pampered liberals in gated communities patrolled by armed response companies, or poor black people living next to crack houses in neighborhoods where police response is a joke?
This kind of racism flies right under the radar completely unnoticed every day, and now that Rod Wright has left the California Assembly, nobody’s going to be carrying the message. Rod, who used to represent the poorest Assembly District in the state, South Central Los Angeles, is an ardent gun advocate who could be counted on to raise these points against the left-wing’s anti-gun jihad.
The comparison of neighborhoods isn’t an exaggeration, either. I walked precincts for a candidate in West LA’s Woodland Hills, the area that elected Chicago 7 guy Tom Hayden and other anti-gun people. The homes typically sported warning signs about their Armed Response Services, and their cars did patrol the area. This is your classical low-crime area, therefore.
Now go down to South Central and you’ll see no Armed Response signs, and you will see crackhouses and street gangs. You’ll also most likely notice that calls to 911 don’t get exactly the same speedy service they do in Woodland Hills. So how do you protect your family against armed gang-bangers and drug lords in South Central? Why, you can read Gandhi and pray, but you’d better have a peace maker in the house. And if you don’t draw a six-figure income, it had better be inexpensive. That’s where Saturday Night Specials come in.
That name, by the way, is a subtle takeoff on “Niggertown Saturday Night”, and isn’t something a polite, Lott-bashing, Blumenthal-serving pub like Slate should be using, if they want to be even slightly consistent.
Speaking of left-wing racism, Larry Elder’s latest column is superb.