If Iraq Can Stop Neighborhood Violence, Why Can't We?

From Sensibly Progressive:

If the end result of the people of Iraq having firearms and the will to take charge of their neighborhoods is a safer country and an empowered citizenry that can create its own security, how can we think our fellow American's are not noble enough to accomplish the same? I just wonder ... what would happen if Mayor Daly [sic] and the Chicago police did what the American Army and the local authorities did in Iraq ... use the power of the people to take back the neighborhoods they have lost; the warzones where law abiding citizens fear to tread and where school children die weekly, sometimes while getting on board their school bus. And in doing so returned pride to the people of those communities for solving their own problems rather than waiting for the big white daddy in the mayor's office to take care of them.

But of course, Mayor Daly won't do that. People in power tend to care more about protecting that power than protecting those under them, and the Daly's of the world will continue to fight against the tools of violence and not the violence itself. Because firearms are empowerment, and when you are in charge empowerment is frightening -- it's much better to have disarmed subjects who bleat rather than growl.

Read the whole thing. And welcome to the blogroll, Sensibly Progressive.