Emmanuel Cleaver, America’s Newest Segregationist

A coalition of conservative Republicans and conservative-to-moderate Democrats in the House approved an amendment in the House Financial Services Committee that would prohibit public housing authorities that place tenants in Federally-subsided housing, public housing or Section 8, from prohibiting said tenants from owning firearms while living in such housing, as long as the firearms were acquired legally.  To untangle the double negative, 2nd Amendment rights don’t end at the public housing door.

Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO-5) expressed his opposition to this amendment, and therefore restricting the 2nd Amendment rights of public housing tenants:

“There was a time during the ’70s and ’80s when public housing developments were considered killing grounds,” said Emanuel Cleaver II , D-Mo., who grew up in public housing. “It is just foolhardy to place guns in developments of poor people, many of whom are unemployed, and place these guns around children. . . . Why would we try to put guns in the most densely populated areas in the urban core? It’s just unbelievable.”

I bought my first shotgun when I was a few days past turning 18, and my first handgun a few months before turning 22.  And I didn’t have all the money in the world.  I guess Beaver Cleaver thinks I’m a problem.

However, I don’t think he does.  All this flowery language of his is merely a circumlocution around race.  He might have been glad to know that the Jim Crow-era South did just what he wanted, i.e. to make it almost impossible for blacks to own firearms legally.  Of course, the segregationist system is something that Cleaver and people like him just couldn’t wait to dismantle.  Following that, I have argued on this medium many times that blacks in charge of other blacks wind up implementing most of the segregationist system, under different names and pseudonyms.

However, as much of a bigot as I am, I’m not willing to go that far.  I think the felon prohibition is quite adequate.  For gun ownership and conceal carry to reach its true potential as a crime deterrent, far many more non-criminal black adults are going to have to exercise such rights and privileges.

Question:  What is it about denizens of government housing in big cities that make guns behave so badly?

In related news:

Several Democrats also backed a separate Price amendment that would require anyone applying for Section 8 rent vouchers to produce a biometric ID card, such as a passport or other identification approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The committee adopted the amendment, 37-31.

Opponents of the amendment argued that the measure, if intended to weed out illegal immigrants, was redundant, as they are already prohibited from receiving public housing assistance.

“This just hurts Americans,” said Baca, who said the measure would likely keep those who cannot afford to pay for such identification, such as the chronically poor and homeless, or the eligible relatives of uncooperative applicants, from getting the public subsidy vouchers.

Lee Baca (who was on the right side of the gun issue) doesn’t realize that illegal aliens aren’t supposed to have jobs or vote, but they do anyway.  Why are we to assume that they don’t get public housing or Section 8?  I don’t know this for sure, but I’m almost certain that Baca has benefit from the votes of illegal aliens.