Two separate gun debates

Christopher Dickey has an excellent article in Newsweek about the gun debate (yeah, from a couple issues ago). Some of the things he discusses:

The gun violence debate looks quite different in the inner city than it does in rural areas. It seems the two areas are talking about two different problems with perhaps two different solutions. In rural areas the county sheriff might be stationed on the other side of the county. A person needs a gun for defense. If a young person dies by gun it is almost always a suicide. In the city there are just too many guns and situations escalate rapidly with all those guns about. If a young person dies by a gun it is almost always a homicide.

Recent Pew surveys show that 82 percent of the nation’s gun owners are white, and most are outside metropolitan areas, but 72 percent of gun-homicide victims are black or Hispanic, and live—and die—in the cities.

The police in New York City have made a huge dent in the city's murder rate. Part of that is the "stop and frisk" program now before the courts. But one thing it has done is convince criminals to leave guns at home. Alas, the NYC program requires a huge investment in manpower, requiring lots of money.

We hear lots of trumpeting about citizens have the right to own a gun. That isn't balanced by the "rights of the 223 people shot to death in New York City last year, or the 435 in Chicago, or the 414 in Los Angeles". We're only talking about half the equation.