Boys Being Boys

Several years ago the absolutely fabulous director of the Omega Boys Club in San Francisco spoke at a National Library Week event at Oakland's Main Library. When asked to explain his success he said it was because he saw it as curing illness.

People "catch" behaviors from those around them similar to how they catch colds, he said. The answer, as with dealing with colds, is to break the cycle. Find the points where it's transferred, give people tools to treat it and toughen up the immune system. The "public health" analogy works fine as a model for effective treatment.

Gun ownership advocates often point out that "guns don't kill people, people kill people", and they're right. You also pointed out areas without drugs where the bullets were flying. There is a "cultural" issue here, in terms of dealing with a value system where gunfire is the answer to any conflict.

On a recent "This American Life" interview, a Bronx community activist noted how guns have radically changed the rules on how guys in his neighborhood fight. Before the guns there were rules. Guys would agree to meet at such-and-such a corner and duke it out. Guys weren't expected to beat up guys too much younger, and if a fight got out of hand, where one guy was just getting the tar beaten out of him, others would step in a break it up. Even if a guy lost a fight, if he did better than expected, honor was still satisfied. I remember a lot this myself from my own childhood. SF's Ingleside wasn't nearly as hard as the Bronx, but guys are still guys and we did have similar firm rules in this regard. The important part is that even violent conflicts could be settled with little more than a fat lip and dented pride.

Not anymore, the Bronx fella said. Now, anyone who gets a toe stepped on feels it's their duty to get a gun. Small guys feel they've got an equalizer, and the bigger guys know it, so the rules about not taking down a squirt is out the window. Overall, there's much less of way for honor to be served outside of gunfire.

This is what struck me a couple of years ago when the East Bay Express ran a year end description of every murder in Oakland. A lot of them had nothing to do with drugs. They were simply personal arguments. Fourteen year old boys settled scores with bullets instead of the traditional meeting after school. This isn't drugs, this a presumed code of honor talking. Everything becomes a blood feud. This where breaking the cycle comes in.

One of the interesting differences between my current home of Sacramento and my former home of Oakland is the missing issue of gun control. Although homicides around here actually increased, even Democrats don't bring up gun control as an answer. It's just a gun totin' environment. There are lot of outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen, and sport shooting is advertised on the radio. When guns do make the headlines it's after someone used one to run off an intruder.

I say this not to justify gun ownership, but that as an issue it's a tough one to get widespread support on because so many people seem to have guns as an entrenched part of their lives. Given all this, giving people better tools to resolve problems might be the more implementable solution overall.