After the George Zimmerman verdict was announced earlier this year, the mainstream media suddenly became very interested in talking about black-on-black crime.
If you believe some of the talking heads that made this a staple of their programs for a few week period, they were genuinely concerned about the number of African-American men who were being murdered on a daily-weekly-annual basis. Oddly, though, this concern has gone dark on this topic for the past few months.
The reality is, most of the people discussing black-on-black crime did so to portray African American men as inherently violent and dangerous since the data shows that "white-on-white crime" occurs at nearly the same rate as black-on-black crime. Studies also indicate that crime is much more associated with socioeconomic status than skin color or heritage.
Regardless of this reality, many media personalities insist we pay attention since statistics show that nearly 50 percent of all murders were committed by African-Americans. Given that blacks make up a much smaller portion of the population, these statistics point to an epidemic that must be addressed.
Of course if a small segment of the population being involved in a an inordinate portion of the murders is cause for action it should be noted that only around 30 percent of Americans own a gun, yet guns account for around 67 percent of murders each year.
If statistics surrounding black-on-black crime indicate an endemic problem, surely statistics on gun violence should have a similarly damning affect.
And while many in the mainstream media have essentially co-signed the NRA's proposed solutions for the disproportionately high number of gun deaths -- more guns -- their only interest when it comes to black-on-black crime seems to be pointing out as many different statistics as possible to prove murders are uniquely a black man's burden.
For some reason, these pundits have never proposed the obvious common sense answer to this dilemma -- more guns for black men.
If black men are more likely to be murdered by a gun and the paragon of safety from gun violence is more guns, then the obvious solution to solve the problem of black-on-black crime is to make sure that all black men own guns and are trained to use them properly.
Problem solved.