Why is the South the Deadliest Region in the U.S.? Why Do White People Buy Guns? Why Does Charleston, S.C. have a Homicide Problem? Oh... Black People

Why might the South be the deadliest region of the United States? 

Good ol' boys, never meaning harm? 

White guys with Confederate flags decals on their pickup trucks? 

White suburban soccer moms? 

Charleston, South Carolina: the only reason the city has any homicide/crime problem is because of the black population

Or because of black people?[Demographics? Guns? Southern culture? Reasons for regional homicide variations remain elusive, Al.com, 9-20-2013]:

The South remains the country’s deadliest region, with a 2012 homicide rate of about 5.5 killings for every 100,000 residents. At 6.7 homicides for every 100,000 residents, Alabama’s rate is higher – even after accounting for an error in the FBI statistics pointed out by state officials.

Among cities with at least 100,000 residents, Birmingham ranked No. 9 last year, according to the FBI data. That is higher even than Chicago, a city that has gained a great deal of attention as a place with an out-of-control murder problem.
Alabama’s other large cities – Montgomery, Mobile and Huntsville – ranked 30, 38 and 85. Only Huntsville’s rate was in the bottom half of the country’s big cities. 

Demographic differences cited
 
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said the most murderous cities and states tend to have higher concentrations of black residents, who on average are six times more likely to be involved in murders.

“There are certainly patterns there,” he said.

But Fox cautioned that race often masks deeper socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, unemployment and low levels of education.

“Demographics is a big part of it, but it’s not the whole story,” he said. “Of course, it’s not race, itself. There’s a whole array of economic issues. … It looks like demographics, but it’s really socioeconomic issues.”

 No, demographics is the only part of the story that matters. 

It is simply race itself. 

Poor economic conditions are created by blacks. Poverty does not create crime; crime is just a manifestation of low impulse control, poor future time orientation, and a lower overall IQ on the part of the individual black person engaging in illegal activity. 

It is simply demographics. 

So, just as black criminals are more likely to own illegal guns (and use them in criminal acts), white Southerners are more likely to own legally-purchased guns to protect themselves, their family and property, as well as their businesses from those dangerous blacks. 

Some dub this 'racism'; we dub it simply engaging in sane act. [White racists more likely to be gun owners: study, Washington Times, 11-6-2013]

Why not a quick look at some of the South's biggest cities, and just who is behind the crime, homicides, and nonfatal shootings? 

Perhaps, by chance, you'll notice a correlation. 

How about Charlotte?: 

The yearly number of killings in Charlotte keeps falling.
In 2012, Charlotte-Mecklenburg recorded its lowest number of homicides in 24 years – 52 as the year ended Monday night. The number of homicides has dropped each year since 2010. 

Herbert Weathers, the former president of the Enderly Park neighborhood association in the Metro Division, resigned from the association in frustration two years ago, after the division’s 18 homicides. He said it seems like the city is becoming safer, but his community is missing out on the crime reductions.

“Most of the crime is over here on the west side,” he said. “The reason why – it’s where all the poor black people are.”

Lower black population in Charlotte means lower homicide rate

Victims mostly black men

The deaths cut across every racial and socioeconomic group, but some trends emerged:

• The Central Division, which includes uptown and Southend, recorded one homicide, the fewest of any division. A swath of south Charlotte extending south between Randolph and Providence roads was virtually untouched by homicides.

• Again, the people most likely to be killed were black men. Nearly 3 out of 5 of the homicide victims were black men. Seventeen of the victims were black men under 30 – nearly a third of all victims.

Blacks make up about 32 percent of Mecklenburg’s population but comprised more than 71 percent of the homicide victims. Police say 37 of the victims were blacks, 10 were white and five were Hispanic.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/02/3760081/charlotte-homicides-drop-to-24.html#.Um5842BIKRM#storylink=cpy

So Charlotte only has a homicide problem because of black men, meaning that wherever black men reside in the city, people are correct to fear for their lives?

Yes, that's the case. 

Same with Jacksonville, Florida.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/02/3760081/charlotte-homicides-drop-to-24.html#.Um5842BIKRM#storylink=cpy

But most especially the charming, beautiful, bucolic city of Charleston, South Carolina (via Free Republic from a local ABC affiliate in 2004): 

City Working To Find Solutions For Black-on-Black Crime

Charleston, SC - Officials in Charleston have come up with several ideas they say could reduce incidence of black-on-black crime in the port city. Those ideas include affordable housing, business development and job training. Blacks make up 34 percent of Charleston's population of almost 97,000 people.

But blacks accounted for 71 percent of the city's 45 homicide victims in the past three years. At least one black person has been charged in every case where there has been an arrest. The FBI reports similar problems in other parts of the country. Mayor Joe Riley ( has met with a city task force to discuss a program to teach construction trades to young people. The Reverend Joe Darby of the Charleston Branch of the NAACP says community groups are working on ideas that will be announced later.

 Oh, it gets better. From Charleston's The Post and Courier, a special January 28, 2004 issue contained a long article deploring the high rate of black-on-black crime in the city. The front page article "Charleston's mean streets take toll on community" produced these facts: 

Dusk gave way to night as Henry Wright sat outside an elegant Market Street hotel, carefully rolling a sprig of rosemary and a short-stemmed yellow rose into a crumpled wedge of tinfoil.

Working with prosthetic hooks, Wright fashioned makeshift bouquets to hawk to visitors strolling this bustling corridor of restaurants and shops.

Though he works alone on this street night after night, Wright rarely feels threatened.
"There's so many cops out here," said Wright. "It's a different story on the other side of town. ... You can get shot at, and they'll be putting another clip in the gun before any police come to help you."

The place he refers to is less than a mile away, but it seems as though it belongs to another city entirely.

There on Charleston's East Side that same night, homeless men in ragged clothes sipped from 40-ounce malt liquor bottles in a scraggly patch of woods carpeted with jagged glass, wadded trash and pine needles. Young men huddled on street corners, spoke in muffled tones and glared at passing police. Blue emergency strobe lights flashed against dilapidated buildings as officers questioned somber-faced onlookers about reports of gunfire.

In this neighborhood, as in some other predominantly black areas of the city, life lacks the carefree, postcard images that Charleston projects to the outside world. These are the gritty places where drugs are sold, gunfire crackles and lives are lost in flashes of intraracial violence.

Violence by blacks against other blacks within the community accounted for dozens of deaths and scores of serious injuries in recent years. Many of these victims are young men with prior criminal records, cut down by gunfire in disproportionate numbers. The death toll is leaving a vacuum filled with simmering anger, life-shattering grief and unsettling fear.

"This is not John Q. Citizen being shot down while mowing his lawn," police Cpl. Jason Emanuele said as he patrolled the east and west sides of the city on a recent night. "It's largely people involved in crime, and crime is a dangerous game."

Charleston is faced with a problem that plagues South Carolina and the nation.
Nationally, homicide is the leading cause of death for black males ages 15 to 24. In 2002, blacks were responsible for about 92 percent of slayings in which other blacks died, according to FBI statistics.

"I believe we've gotten completely away from what makes life precious, and we have to get back to the idea that life is still worth living," said the Rev. Charles McLamore, a pastor at Francis Brown AME Church on the city's West Side.

City officials, police and residents blame the violence on numerous causes, including poverty, widespread drug use, lack of job and educational opportunities, broken families, loosening of moral standards and an overburdened judicial system that is too quick to cut deals with offenders. Whatever the cause, the result is plain to see.

Blacks comprise 34 percent of Charleston's population of 96,650, but they accounted for 71 percent of the city's 45 homicide victims in the past three years. In every case in which there was an arrest, at least one black suspect was charged.

In 2002, black-on-black violence accounted for about 56 percent of the city's 555 aggravated assaults, which are crimes involving weapons or serious injuries, according to State Law Enforcement Division statistics.

Until recently, the violence drew little attention from city leaders or the wider community. Many still bristle at discussing the subject in racial terms. Others say such denial only causes the problem to fester.

"We've got a big old elephant in the room, but nobody is supposed to see it," said Carl Smalls, a black West Ashley truck driver whose son, a promising college football player, was gunned down by two black strangers in Columbia in 2002. "We still have the old ways of looking at things. We don't want the white man to see we have a problem. But if we don't fix it, it's going to wipe us out."

On Thursday, Charleston Police Chief Reuben Greenberg, who is black, will host a community meeting as a step toward creating an "anti-crime" culture. Greenberg called for the forum one day after he issued an apology to those offended by his comment about black-on-black crime.

In an interview for a Jan. 4 Post and Courier story about Lowcountry homicides, Greenberg said, "I refuse to take responsibility every time one black son of a bitch kills another. I have no control over that. There are social factors much more powerful than anything we can concoct in the Charleston Police Department."

The NAACP demanded an immediate apology from Greenberg and called on the mayor and City Council to dismiss him if he refused. Little was said about the underlying problem Greenberg was addressing.

Smalls, 47, said civil rights groups such as the NAACP have done the community a disservice by ignoring "real problems" such as black-on-black crime while tackling marginal issues such as Greenberg's comments and the state's unwillingness to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds.

"It speaks volumes about where we're at in the black community as far as leadership," Smalls said.

 No, this article speaks volumes about why white people in America purchase firearms as protection; not out of any 'racist' inclination, but out of the simple notion that living in the South means you'll be near large populations of dangerous black people. 

Charleston has large sections of the city that are uninhabitable because of dangerous black people, whose lack any appreciation for life and engage in a fratricidal war against their own people. 

The same situation is found in Charlotte and Jacksonville, where real estate occupied by black people is deemed by 'poor' and 'dangerous'. 

Oddly, the only reason the real estate in these cities is both 'poor' and 'dangerous' is because of the black population that inhabits the area. 

 But the South is still inhabited by racist white people, who only buy guns with nefarious purposes at mind. 

Right? 

Wrong. 

The black population fuels the homicide rate and the decisions by individual white people to purchase a gun for protection. 

The South doesn't have a homicide problem; the South has a black problem.