Tons of Guns

"I got mines I hope you [got yourself a gun]" Nas - "Got yourself a Gun"

I'll be honest I don't listen to or really read the news. The reason being is because it's usually all bad news. So I can appreciate when ClnMike does his Good News Tuesdays. But last week I came across an article about a young 11 year old boy that killed his pregnant step mother with a gun. Well the twisted part is that apparently the gun used to kill the 8 month pregnant step mother was a youth 20-gauge shot gun that was given to the child. Just 2 weeks prior to this tragic event the boy won a turkey in a shooting competition. I just don't understand what some parents are thinking these days. This tragedy could have been prevented so easily. But now a woman and her unborn baby are dead, a young boy is facing life in prison for double homicide and a family is torn apart.

Now I know I started off with something a little depressing, but that story made me think about me and guns when I was a young boy. So on a lighter note I have a little confession. When I was younger like most young boys I had a fascination with guns. Upon saying that some may assume that I had plenty of toy guns to play with. Well actually it was the total opposite. My parents absolutely refused to buy or allow me to play with toy guns. Yep they were all off limits. Water pistol? Nope! Cap gun? Nope! Suction gun? Nope! Trust mom and dad vetoed them all.

So, as a young boy I was stuck at a crossroad. I mean how am I to play cops and robbers with no gun? What kind of cop or robber has no gun? So what was I to do? Well being the innovative young boy that I was (and still am) I didn't need an actual gun. Yes ladies and gentlemen I turned any and everything into a gun. I made guns out of legos, Lincoln Logs (that's old school for the younger readers out there. Lol), sticks, and of course my finger. Pow! Now as much as my parents tried to stop this behavior they just couldn't keep me from making more guns. As soon as they took one of my make shift guns away I would immediately grab something else, aim it at someone, and say POW! I think its just one of those things about little boys. Its somehow in their nature. Although I will admit I was an extreme case.

Likewise, my son's mother and I adopted the same philosophy to keep our son away from guns. But of course it doesn't stop him from running up on me with his finger or some other object and unloading on me. POW! Lol. Luckily for me his fascination is with cars and rarely thinks about guns or violent toys. As for me I eventually turned to sports cards and video games and my gun fascination died down some. However, when the super soaker was out I had to have one.
Again, the key word is it died down "some." I can recall at about age 12 a friend of mines and I bought these 2 toy guns. They resembled 9 millimeters. But what kept them from looking real was the fact they were painted in camouflage fatigue colors. Well in an effort to make them look realer we came up with the bright idea to spray paint the guns black. So, after spray painting the guns to the average untrained eye the gun really did look like a real 9 millimeter (similar to the toy gun to the left). Bright idea #2 came when we decided to actually carry these guns around. Yep just like they do in the movies in the waist band. Now we didn't do anything devious with these guns but we just carried them around to make us look or feel cool.

Fortunately, no one ever mistook the guns for real guns. However, there was one particular incident that I recall so vividly. Now let me first paint the picture. The year was around 1992 or 1993, the place Los Angeles, California (Technically the San Fernando Valley). So this was after the Rodney King verdict and L.A. riots. So tension between blacks and police were at an all time high. A 12 year old young black male walks out of a local mall. He has a toy gun spray painted to look realistic. A police squad car with 2 white officers in it passes by and they notice him reaching for what looks to be a gun. They immediately stop! They tell him to stop and one of the officers walks up to him and asks what he has tucked in his jeans. He pulls out a toy gun and immediately states "it's just a toy." Officer #1 replies "this thing looks real why are you carrying it?" The boy replies "for no reason its just a toy." Officer #2 states "don't you know we could have shot you thinking this gun was real?" The boy keeps quiet. Officer #1 says "we're going to give you a bag to carry this thing in."

Next, Officer #2 interjects and says "no better yet we're going to just drop you off at home. What's your name and where do you live?" The boy panics and tries to think fast. He gives his first name. They then ask him his last name. He attempts to think even faster. Well he didn't want to give his real last name, so the only thing that he could come up with quick enough was Mc Williams. "Mc Williams is your last name?" Officer #1 asks with a suspicious look on his face. He then sarcastically states "Okay then hop in the back we're gonna drop you off at home Mr. Mc Williams." On the trip the young boy realizes he can't be seen by his parents with a squad car dropping him off. So as they approach his apartment complex he tells them to stop at the building right before his. The officers let him out of the back and give him the gun in the bag. They leave him with a stern warning not to carry the gun out in public any more.

Well of course that young black boy was me. Whenever I think back to the incident I just think God was with me that day. Those cops could have shot me and would have gotten away with justifiable homicide because I decided to carry a fake gun. Then I laugh at me choosing the last name Mc Williams. There was a white girl in my class with the same last name so I guess that's all that came to mind in time. Back then I didn't realize that it was strictly an Irish last name. So the chances of a black man having that last name were the same of Rodney King still having some of the money left that he won in the civil trial. Although my brother once out drank an Irish man and called him self Dre Mc Williams, beyond that it wasn't a plausible alias. LoL.

I don't think my fascination with guns was quite the same after that incident. Pretty much non existent would describe it best. Although once my ex father in law (an ex-police officer) took me to the gun range once when I was about 21. That was the first real life gun I had ever held let alone fired. So I guess that allowed me to finally live out some childhood fantasy. Whatever the case may be a child does not have the mental capicity to handle real guns. Hell there are plenty of adults that shouldn't even be handling guns. So to purposely hand a child a real gun is a tragedy waiting to happen. Just my take on the story.

--C-Recks--

I D.A.R.E. You

I can recall back to being in 4th grade when I was first introduced to something that was brand new to me in so many ways. Somehow my parents had managed to basically never expose me to the knowledge that such a thing even existed up until this point. What is it that I'm speaking of you ask? Well the answer would be Drugs. Well I know that it seems odd in today's times that a 10 year old not know anything about drugs. But I can honestly say I don't ever recall knowing or hearing about them until this point in my life (However, alcohol I knew very well growing up with my Grandfather John). Well that was until my teacher 4th Grade Teacher Ms. Bernier (I had a crush on her. lol) announced that we would be having a D.A.R.E. assembly later that day. My young mind immediately began to wonder what is D.A.R.E.?

Well later that day an L.A.P.D. officer quickly explained what D.A.R.E. was to myself and an auditorium full of other 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. I don't recall what exactly what happen specifically next but I'm sure I ran home with all kinds of questions for my parents. Also, I remember later being selected as a finalist to read my speech I wrote about D.A.R.E. during the D.A.R.E. graduation program. Ironically, I can remember my father sitting up the night before helping me to write this speech. If you knew my father's history you would also appreciate the irony. Well I went on to deliver my speech and graduate from the D.A.R.E. program with my dad in the audience to congratulate me. I received my D.A.R.E. t-shirt, button, hat, bumper sticker, key chain and knowledge about drugs and gangs that I supposed helped to keep me somewhat on the straight path.

So good job ex LAPD Police Chief Darryl Gates on your D.A.R.E. Program, and good job President Reagan on your diligence on the "War on Drugs."

However, I decided to do just a little history on D.A.R.E. beyond what I learned from the officers in the 4th grade. Well in case you've been reading D.A.R.E. and either don't remember or are wondering what the acronym stands for it's Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Well according to Wikipedia D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 and "Students who enter the program sign a pledge not to use drugs or join gangs and are taught by local law enforcement about the dangers of drug use in an interactive in-school curriculum which lasts ten weeks. DARE is popular and well-funded, at least in the United States. However, numerous scientific studies of the program report that D.A.R.E. does not actually decrease drug use among graduates. Some studies have even indicated that there is an increased rate of drug use among D.A.R.E. graduates. In 2001, the Surgeon General of the United States placed the D.A.R.E. program in the category of "Does Not Work".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education

Well when I read this I was truly in shock. So you mean to tell me that all those weeks of studying about drugs and drug awareness and prevention was all for nothing? You mean I stayed up late wrote that speech delivered it to an audience full of my peers for nothing? I walked around wearing a t-shirt and hat promoting D.A.R.E. all for nothing? Well how DARE you waste my precious time!! I could have been at recess or some other 4th grade activity instead of hour long assemblies. LOL. J/k. But of course it was not a total waste of time because I did believe in what I was learning at the time and again I am a successful product of the D.A.R.E. campaign and although many have taken the pledge and broken their word I'm sure there are many other success stories that came/come from D.A.R.E.

In fact, Wiki reports that "According to the D.A.R.E. website, 36 million children around the world — 26 million in the U.S. — are part of the program. The program is implemented in 80% of the nation's school districts, and 54 countries around the world. D.A.R.E. was one of the first national programs promoting zero tolerance. The D.A.R.E. program has received numerous accolades and awards for delivering the message to keep "kids off drugs" and remains widely popular and well funded, receiving over $1 billion per year in the United States alone."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs

Well while we're on the subject of the supposed war on drugs I was curious to know how far we've come in this fight. According to the trusty Wiki "This total was estimated by the federal U.S. government's cost report on drug control to be roughly $12 billion in 2005. Additionally, in a separate report, the U.S. government reports that the cost of incarcerating drug law offenders was $30.1 billion—$9.1 billion for police protection, $4.5 billion for legal adjudication, and $11.0 billion for state and federal corrections. In total, roughly $45.5 billion was spent in 2005 for these factors." Now I am sure that there are many tactics implemented by the DEA to stop drugs from entering the country and hitting the inner city streets. And I'm not here to knock the DEA by any means because I know their job is not an easy task.

Unfortunately, it's not working too well at least from what my eyes detect. I've been throughout the "hood" sections of Chicago and needless to say you won't drive too far before someone throws up the universal "I got weed sign." For those of you unfamiliar it's simply putting your fingers to your mouth as if imitating you're smoking. So just in case you ever find yourself lost and driving through the "hood" if you see someone doing this don't worry it's not a gang sign. They just want you to know that if you're looking to buy weed, marijuana, green or whatever clever nickname you want to call it they got it. Funny thing is that I work and live in the suburbs but I was recently walking home from work and I walked past a Caucasian young man and heard him yelling "Hey!" Not knowing who he was talking to I kept walking he then yelled louder and I looked back and noticed he was talking to me. So I stopped and asked "what's up?" The guy then proceeds to ask if I have or know where he can get weed from? I quickly answered no to both and proceeded to take my black ass home. Well the black ass part was I'm sure part of why he chose to assume I had weed or knew where he could get some. I could go deeper into this stereotyping but that's probably best fit for another blog all by itself. But just goes to show you that you don't have to be in the heart of the ghetto to be confronted with drugs and drug use.

So back to the war on drugs, that's where we were. Well there's one tactic that I've discussed with my brother and a few others that I don't believe the DEA has used in their efforts to keep drugs off the streets. What I continue to say is we need to find out who makes and supplies the "baggies." Yes those small bags that fit only a nickel or dimes worth of drugs in them is exactly what I'm referring to. I'm no drug expert so please don't take what I'm saying as evidence I deal or use drugs because I don't. But being young and black and having lived in the inner city and still knowing people that do you get exposed to some things. Therefore, I know that to make certain drugs there are certain products you can use such as a scale, baking soda, razor blades. Well those are common items that you can basically pick up at any grocery store. However, I've never seen the little "baggies" in aisle 3 of the grocery store along with the sandwich bags and foil. Or maybe it's just me they are pretty small so maybe I've just missed them, but I doubt it. I just have never seen them used for anything else ever, so if they had another practical use then I could understand them being produced but I just don't have one. Then some even dare to have the marijuana leaf symbol on the outside of the bag. Come on now you can't tell me there is another use for such a bag. I mean it's bad enough that drug users are getting swindled as is. Well so I've heard, my parents have occasionally mention how a nickel bag back in the day was a sandwich bag full of weed now they're reduced to this small ass "baggy." Talk about inflation LOL.

But basically my theory is wherever dealers are getting these baggies from can lead to someone that has a connection with a lot of dealers. Now will it work or not I don't know, but to me if you haven't at least tried it then hell it's worth a try. But perhaps they have and figured the baggies were irrelevant to stopping the war on drugs. Now yes I'm positive that if they eliminate the suppliers of the little "baggies" that the dealers will use something else to package their drugs in. Anything from sandwich bags, to foil, to paper, plastic wrap, to tissue, bubble gum wrappers, etc. By no means am I saying it will solve the war on drugs single handedly but I think it would maybe give them inside access to some of the low level people and perhaps give them a chance to move their way up the ladder.

Well all in all I feel that drugs will always be in our society no matter how many billions the Government spends on the war on drugs. So ultimately there is nothing D.A.R.E. or removing little baggies can or will do to stop drugs and drug usage. However, when my child is as of age I do hope that programs like D.A.R.E. still exist. Although I don't expect them to my job as a parent, but I think it's a great way to begin the prevention and awareness especially in school where I won't be. But as a parent I will do the best I can to keep him as far away from drugs as I can.


C-Recks.