United No Longer

Alabama factory votes for fifth time to decertify union

Alabama factory workers voted for the fifth time in two years to break ties with the UAW on Tuesday.

Workers at NTN-Bower voted 74-52 to boot the union off the premises of the manufacturer, making it the third time anti-union employees have beaten UAW Local 1990 in the last 18 months.

Local 1990 did not respond to request for comment.

Union opponents have received legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation throughout the process. NRTW spokesman Patrick Semmens said the fifth vote should settle any doubts about the will of the workers.

“Once again, employees at the Hamilton NTN-Bower plant have made it abundantly clear that they are not interested in the UAW’s so-called ‘representation,’” he said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.

The 22-vote margin is a bit smaller than the fourth ballot held in February, in which workers voted 82-50. The union filed challenges to the fourth ballot before the regional National Labor Relations Board, alleging that management interfered with the campaign. The NLRB ordered a fifth ballot in May.

“Unfortunately, it has already taken these workers five elections in less than two years to rid themselves of one stubborn union,” Semmens said. “Employees shouldn’t have to clear this many hurdles to remove an unwanted union.”

The union had managed to narrowly win one of the five secret ballot elections in January. Those results were dismissed after it was revealed that somebody had stuffed the ballot boxes: 148 were counted, but only 139 workers voted.

Via: WFB

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Rand Paul Begins Filibuster Of Patriot Act

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is filibustering the Patriot Act on the Senate floor, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to stop anytime soon.

The Republican presidential candidate took control of the floor Wednesday afternoon at 1:18 p.m., simultaneously explaining on Twitter that he is filibustering the renewal of the Patriot Act because of the National Security Agency’s program that collects bulk phone record data of American citizens.

“The government shouldn’t have the ability to get that information unless they have suspicion,” Paul said on the floor Wednesday. “Unless they have probable cause you committed a crime.”

In an campaign email to supporters, posted online by a reporter from Time magazine, Paul said: “I will not rest. I will not back down. I will not yield one inch in this fight so long as my legs can stand.”

Here’s how a Paul campaign aide described the marathon speech: “Senator Rand Paul has taken the floor of the U.S. Senate to filibuster the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Senator Paul is a staunch defender of liberty and believes Americans have a right to privacy. The U.S. government has no place conducting these warrantless searches and should focus on gathering intelligence on suspected terrorists and foreign actors.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Wisconsin Sheriff: ‘It Is a Myth That Police Kill Black Males in Greater Numbers Than Anyone Else’

(CNSNews.com) - Milwaukee County, Wis., Sheriff David Clarke on Tuesday addressed what he called a “myth” that police kill more black males than any other race in testimony at the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing titled, “Policing Strategies for the 21st Century.”

“It is a myth that police kill black males in greater numbers than anyone else,” Clarke said, citing statistics provided by the University of Toledo, which contrasts, what he called “the false narrative propagated by cop haters and the liberal mainstream media.”

Clarke referenced “the police use of force data,” compiled by Richard Johnson, PhD and titled, “Examining the Prevalence of Deaths from Police Use of Force,” which shows that between 2009 and 2012, the majority of those who died at the hands of police were white males.

Specifically, 61 percent or 915 of 1,491 people who died from police use of force were white males, while 32 percent or 481 were black males, Clarke noted.

The same report cited FBI data showing that “of the 56,259 homicides from 2009 to 2012, 19,000 (33.8%) were killings of black males.” In comparison, “481 (2.5%) were the result of police use of force.”

“Private citizens killed a quarter more black males in justifiable homicides than did police use of force,” the report said.

“Black-on-black crime is the elephant in the room that few want to talk about. We can talk about police use of force but it doesn’t start with transforming the police profession,” said Clarke. “It starts by asking why we need so much assertive policing in the American ghetto.

“Are police officers perfect? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Are police agencies perfect? Not… even… close. But we are the best our communities have to offer,” he added.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the percentage of whites who kill whites is 83 percent. “Now is white-on-white violence a problem in America that we should also have a robust discussion about?” Jeffries asked Clarke.

“Violence in America in general is problematic, but if you look at the rates, that’s where it starts coming a little more into balance in terms of the data I’ve seen, and I’ve looked at a lot of it. The white-on-white crime does happen – 80 percent figure you put out there – but when you look at the rates of it, these two are not even close,” Clarke said.

Via: CNS News
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Obama: Climate change contributed to rise of Boko Haram, Syrian civil war

President Obama on Wednesday used his commencement address to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy to lecture graduates on climate change, and said climate change has already contributed to several armed conflicts around the world that have led to involvement by the U.S. military.

"I understand climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world, yet what we also know is that severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram," Obama said in his speech.

"It's now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East," he added.

Obama spoke broadly to graduates for about 10 minutes, and drew applause at several points as he recounted some of the history of the Coast Guard and highlighted some of the graduates.

But he then spent more than 15 minutes, more than half his speech, reciting his views on climate change as graduates sat quietly and listened.

"As a nation, we face many challenges, including the grave threat of terrorism, and as Americans we will always do everything in our power to protect our country," he said. "But even as we meet threats like terrorism, we cannot and we must not ignore a peril that can affect generations."

"The science is indisputable. The fossil fuels we burn release carbon dioxide, which traps heat, and the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been in 800,000 years."

Via: Washington Examiner

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[VIDEO] Trove of Bin Laden documents released

U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday released a trove of documents recovered during the 2011 raid on Usama bin Laden's compound -- offering a rare window into the operations of Al Qaeda and bin Laden's involvement in leading the network from his Pakistan hideaway. 

The documents include dozens of letters, some from  bin Laden himself, as well as accounting information and even what appears to be an application form for prospective Al Qaeda members. That form, which asks a series of detailed questions, includes the line: "Who should we contact in case you became a martyr?" 

CLICK TO READ THE DOCUMENTS 

The correspondence itself shows bin Laden continued to be engaged from his hideout and sought to direct operations. Shortly before he was killed in the May 2011 raid, a letter shows him celebrating the Arab Spring revolutions which had toppled Tunisia's leader at that point and were mounting in several other countries. 

"These are gigantic events that will eventually engulf most of the Muslim world, will free the Muslim land from American hegemony, and is troubling America whose Secretary of State declared that they are worried about the armed Muslims controlling the Muslim region," bin Laden wrote, according to a translated version. 

Via: Fox News

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Iran's Ayatollah: Nuke Inspectors Will Not Have Access to Military Sites, Scientists

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif prepares for closed-door nuclear talks at the U.N. in Geneva Switzerland on Nov. 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini, File)

(CNSNews.com) – As the Iran nuclear talks were due to resume in Vienna on Wednesday, Iran's spiritual leader and it main nuclear negotiator both doubled down on rejecting a core element of any deal – the right of international inspectors to access military sites.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told military commanders Wednesday he will not allow international inspection of Iran's military sites or access to Iranian scientists under any nuclear agreement with world powers. He said Iran will resist "coercion and excessive demands," the Associated Press reported.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials would not be allowed to inspect the facilities, and also charged that Western claims to the contrary were merely designed to placate pressure groups at home.

The Obama administration says that Iran agreed to such inspections in an interim “framework” agreement reached on April 2. A White House fact sheet at the time said it was agreed Iran must allow IAEA inspectors “regular access to all” declared nuclear facilities, as well as access to any locations of suspected illicit nuclear activity, “anywhere in the country.”

That nuclear verification regime, described by President Obama as “the most robust and intrusive” ever negotiated,” goes beyond the requirements of the “additional protocols” to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which apply to the nuclear programs of more than 130 countries.

But Zarif, speaking alongside his Hungarian counterpart in Tehran, stated that Iran’s additional protocol implementation – which he emphasized was voluntary – would never entail “excessive and unreasonable” access to its facilities, since “military and even economic secrets” were not covered by the protocol.

The Tehran Times quoted him as saying that certain Western officials’ “sensational” remarks about access to Iran’s facilities were simply intended merely to “pacify” pressure groups.

Zarif also chided the U.S. for what he suggested was its disregard for what had been agreed upon in the framework agreement.

Via: CNS News

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House bill would cap expenses for ex-presidents

WASHINGTON (AP) - Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and other former presidents who earn lucrative speaking fees and draw other income would no longer be able to count on taxpayer dollars to pay for their post-White House office space and staff under a bill in the House.

On a voice vote, the House Oversight panel backed a measure Tuesday to limit taxpayer dollars for expenses, including travel, incurred by ex-presidents who earn more than $400,000 a year.

U.S. taxpayers paid a total of $3.5 million last year in pensions and benefits to the four living former presidents, including $1.3 million for Bush and $950,000 for Clinton, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Most of that money was for sprawling office space in Dallas and New York, respectively.

Both Clinton and Bush, like other ex-presidents before them, have earned millions in speaking fees since leaving office.

The oversight committee acted just days after Hillary Rodham Clinton reported that she and her husband earned more than $30 million combined in speaking fees and book royalties since January 2014. The earnings put the couple in the top one-10th of 1 percent of all Americans.

The House bill would set presidential pensions at $200,000 a year, nearly the same as the current amount, with an additional $200,000 set aside for office space and other expenses. The bill would reduce expense payments by $1 for every dollar above $400,000 earned by a former president.

Under the legislation, ex-presidents who earn more than $600,000 a year would not receive federal funds for office expenses or travel. Presidential pensions would not be affected by the amount of income earned.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight panel and a co-sponsor of the bill, said it was not aimed at anyone, but was a simple matter of fairness.

"History shows that former presidents do very well financially after they leave office," Chaffetz said in a statement before Tuesday's vote. "In fact all former presidents are millionaires, making it unlikely that they depend upon their taxpayer-funded allowance to make ends meet."

Chaffetz, who has introduced similar bills in the past two sessions of Congress, missed Tuesday's vote because of an emergency operation to remove his gall bladder.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the panel, co-sponsored the latest measure with Chaffetz.

"Taxpayers should not have to pay for a former president's allowance if the former president is making a comfortable living earning more than $400,000 a year after leaving office," Cummings said.

Via: WCRB-TV

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Bill Burton to Megyn Kelly: ‘Cloud of Corruption’ Only Follows Hillary at Fox

Fox’s Megyn Kelly brought on former White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton last night to press him about Hillary Clinton receiving emails about Libya of questionable intelligence from Sidney Blumenthal, someone the Obama administration had already prevented Clinton from hiring at the State Department.

Burton said that everyone in the administration has friends, and the Blumenthal story is “confusing” and just a “trumped-up controversy” anyway.

Kelly asked Burton about the “cloud of corruption that follows” Clinton everywhere. Burton retorted, “Maybe it just only follows her around on your network.”

Kelly shot back that it was The New York Times that broke the Blumenthal story, not Fox, while Burton took shots at Clinton’s Republican rivals for focusing on her over important issues.

Via: Mediaite

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[VIDEO] Marilyn Mosby Now Says Freddie Gray’s Knife Isn’t Important To Case Against 6 Baltimore Cops

The office of Baltimore City state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby has added a new wrinkle to the Freddie Gray case, alleging in a court filing that the 25-year-old was illegally arrested by Baltimore police officers even before they recovered a knife on his person.

WATCH:

In the motion, filed Monday, deputy state’s attorney Michael Schatzow rebuts a May 8 motion for dismissal and recusal filed by attorneys for the six officers charged in the case. Schatzow calls the attorneys’ claims that Mosby has numerous conflicts of interest “premature, frivolous, illogical.”

Via: Daily Caller

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How Immigrants Have Changed the Democratic Party

Hillary Clinton speaks with students about immigration during an event at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

What a difference a disastrous midterm election makes. Before the 2014 vote, conventional wisdom in the Democratic Party still counseled political caution on immigration reform. Last summer, few were surprised when President Obama delayed announcing deportation relief until after the November vote; it was the kind of reluctant leadership the modern party has shown consistently on immigration. But less than a month into her campaign, Hillary Clinton struck a markedly different tone.

Clinton met with a group of undocumented students on May 5 and described an agenda that reflects just how much has changed since 2008. Young immigrants, in particular, are done waiting for politicians to catch up to the reality of their lives, and their rightful impatience fuels a movement that’s forcing the issue for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Clinton staged her meeting at the same Las Vegas high school where Obama announced his executive actions last November. These would grant legal status to as many as 5 million people, including some parents whose children were born as US citizens. A federal judge in Texas blocked those moves pending the outcome of a challenge to the president’s authority. Clinton said she not only supports Obama’s actions but would extend relief to parents of undocumented children, too. She called for the reunification of families already split up by deportation, questioned the safety of for-profit detention centers, and made a full-throated case for understanding immigration reform as a family-values issue. She stuck to the Democratic line that the first, best answer is a comprehensive reform law, but she was bullish about the authority she’d wield in the absence of congressional action.

Via: The Nation

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The Green Behind California’s Greens

A handful of superrich donors have created the illusion of a grassroots environmental movement.

GIPHOTOSTOCK/CORBIS

In the fall of 2010, an army of California groups—including blue-collar unions, small businesses, manufacturers, and big energy companies—tried to persuade voters to suspend the state’s rigorous anti-global-warming law, which mandates a rollback of greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels. The advocates for delaying the law argued that, with an unemployment rate of 12.4 percent, California needed to focus on creating jobs and couldn’t afford costly new measures to slash carbon emissions, such as requiring utilities to generate power from renewable sources. But what proponents of the jobs measure, known as Proposition 23, didn’t count on was the financial might of California’s environmentalists. In just months, greens raised three times as much money as the initiative’s supporters. As the Los Angeles Times put it, the environmentalists then “steamrolled” their foes with a $30 million campaign that deployed television ads featuring Hollywood celebrities, millions of mailings, and hundreds of thousands of robo-calls and text messages. One environmentalist described the coalition that crushed Prop. 23—comprising entertainers, hedge-fund honchos, technology billionaires, and the many organizations that they back—as “the new face of the environmental movement.” It wasn’t the face of the movement, though, but its pocketbook that won the battle.

Californians have long had a green reputation. But for many years, interest in the environment expressed itself in modest programs of nature conservation, or in efforts to mitigate pollution problems such as the smog that once choked the state’s cities. Even as they gained political power over the last 15 years or so, however, California greens have moved steadily leftward—touting, for example, zero-growth initiatives that make it crazily expensive to create jobs, housing, and infrastructure. Credit, or blame, for this development should go to a small circle of superrich Californians, who made their fortunes chiefly in so-called clean industries like technology and finance, and who have poured vast sums of money into the green cause. These wealthy individuals bankroll hundreds of environmental organizations and spend massively to pass green ballot initiatives and elect green-friendly pols. So influential are these West Coast players that a recent report from Columbia University’s Journalism School—otherwise sympathetic to environmentalism—described the concentration of green power as “troubling.” Even more disconcerting, these true believers also seem intent on promoting their aggressive form of environmentalism around the country. Call it the Californication of the green movement.

Via:City Journal

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Tennessee family accused of spending $187M raised for cancer charities on themselves

Federal regulatory officials Tuesday accused a Tennessee family of spending more than $187 million collected for cancer charities on cars, gym memberships, cruise vacations, and college tuition. 

The Federal Trade Commission, in a federal lawsuit joined by all 50 states and the District of Columbia, said that James T. Reynolds Sr., his ex-wife and son raised the money through their various charities: The Cancer Fund of America in Knoxville, Tennessee, and its affiliated Cancer Support Services; The Breast Cancer Society in Mesa, Arizona; and the Children's Cancer Fund of America in Powell, Tennessee.

The charities hired telemarketers to collect $20 donations from people across the country, telling consumers that they provided financial aid and other support to cancer patients, including pain medication, transportation to chemotherapy visits and hospice care.

But little money made it to cancer patients, as the groups "operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation" with none of the controls used by bona fide charities, the FTC said Tuesday.

Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, declined to say whether authorities were pursuing a separate criminal investigation against the Reynolds family, saying only that the agency did not have the authority to do so. 

Via: Fox News

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REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS: SCOTT WALKER DAZZLES ON CAPITOL HILL

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker—the clear Republican presidential frontrunner according to almost all GOP primary polls, even though he hasn’t announced a 2016 campaign officially yet—dazzled Republicans across Capitol Hill in meetings all day Tuesday.

“I’ve always been impressed with Governor Walker as I am with a number of people in our field. I think we’ve got a good field,” 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

92%

 told Breitbart News’s Alex Swoyer in an interview on Tuesday afternoon. Jordan met Walker to say hello on Tuesday but didn’t have time to stay for the full meeting Walker held with nearly a hundred Republicans. “Look, whoever emerges as the finalist—I think is going to show up, and will contrast with Secretary Clinton. But Governor Walker is impressive, and he has an impressive record in Wisconsin.”

Walker’s staff told Breitbart News in a readout from Walker’s day that he met with about 80 or more mostly House GOP members in the morning, then has meetings in D.C. planned for throughout the day with conservative movement heads and some GOP senators. “He gave a few opening remarks and then took Q&A,” Kirsten Kukowski, Walker’s communications director, said of the morning meeting with House members in an email. “Questions about what he’s done in WI and needing someone who can govern that way in DC, what happened with collective bargaining, foreign policy, energy, immigration, religious liberty.”

Via: Breitbart

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Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat

Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.

The timing of the 1979 NASA satellite instrument launch could not have been better for global warming alarmists. The late 1970s marked the end of a 30-year cooling trend. As a result, the polar ice caps were quite likely more extensive than they had been since at least the 1920s. Nevertheless, this abnormally extensive 1979 polar ice extent would appear to be the “normal” baseline when comparing post-1979 polar ice extent.

Updated NASA satellite data show the polar ice caps remained at approximately their 1979 extent until the middle of the last decade. Beginning in 2005, however, polar ice modestly receded for several years. By 2012, polar sea ice had receded by approximately 10 percent from 1979 measurements. (Total polar ice area – factoring in both sea and land ice – had receded by much less than 10 percent, but alarmists focused on the sea ice loss as “proof” of a global warming crisis.)

NASA satellite measurements show the polar ice caps have not retreated at all.

Via: Forbes

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Obama official once said train-safety cost outweighed benefit

WASHINGTON -- When a Republican lawmaker in 2011 asked an Obama administration Office of Management and Budget official to name regulations where costs were not justified by benefits, the official had a ready answer.

"There is only one big one that comes to mind," said Cass Sunstein, then administrator of the White House OMB's Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs. "It is called Positive Train Control.''

Even though the regulations for the $13.2 billion rail-safety system were mandated by Congress, "monetizable benefits are lower than the monetizable costs," Sunstein told then Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., at a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee hearing. "There aren't a lot like that.''

Four years later, those words may come back to haunt the Barack Obama White House and Sunstein, who has since returned to teaching law at Harvard. Safety investigators are still trying to piece together how an Amtrak train went off the track in Philadelphia last week, killing eight. It was a crash that a National Transportation Safety Board member, Robert Sumwalt, said might have been prevented had PTC been fully operational.

Sunstein's pooh-poohing of PTC in 2011 is all the more remarkable because the Obama administration's efforts to push forward regulations in a variety of areas -- notably air pollution and climate change -- against Republican accusations that they would cripple the economy.

Via: CTPost

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Clinton campaign aims for style, substance points amid scrutiny

In the weeks since she formally, finally announced her campaign for the presidency in April, Hillary Clinton has sought to score points for style and substance.

Style, to convince Democratic voters that she won't run like an incumbent who views the primaries as a mere formality — a complaint about her 2008 presidential campaign. Substance, to signal her liberal bona fides to Democrats who long for the bank-bashing Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get into the presidential nominating contest.

So Clinton took a road trip halfway across the U.S. from New York to Iowa in a van nicknamed Scooby Doo and stopped to grab a bite at a Chipotle in Ohio. She met with small groups of voters for "roundtable discussions" in which she nodded and listened — much as she did when she began running for the Senate in 2000, breaking ground as the first first lady to run for office.

USA TODAY

Hillary Clinton goes unnoticed in Ohio Chipotle

Early reviews say Clinton has achieved what she set out to do when she launched her campaign on April 12. However, as she looks ahead to the next phase of her presidential bid and tries to continue to avoid the missteps that cost her in 2008, she will be challenged to put forward a clear rationale for her candidacy while dueling with scrutiny from press she has largely kept at bay.

Via: USA Today
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[VIDEO] Crazy Democrat Tries to Say White-on-White Crime Is Pandemic in America …Here Are the Facts

Liberal Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) had a heated exchange today with Sheriff David Clarke during the House Committee hearing on Community Policing.

Rep. Jeffries tried to convince Sheriff Clarke that white-on-white crime was pandemic in America.
Listen to this nonsense.

“Eighty percent of whites kill whites, correct?… Actually it’s 83%. Now is white on white violence a problem in America that we should also have a robust discussion about?”

Seriously?

Now here are the facts…
The truth is that young black men commit homicides at a rate 10 times greater than whites and Hispanics combined.

Blacks also commit twenty-five more assaults against whites than whites do against blacks.
It’s an inconvenient truth.

Then there’s this…
Gun violence in the inner city is also disproportionately high compared to other areas.
The Secular Right reported this on inner city gun violence.

The most common gun violence, by contrast, is drearily predictable and is the source on average of nearly ten thousand homicides a year. Such violence occurs overwhelmingly in certain locations of cities—over the past 30 years in Boston, for example, 75 percent of the city’s shootings occurred in 4.5% of its area, whereas 88.5 percent of the city’s street segments experienced not a single shooting.

Urban shootings are retaliatory or the product of the most trivial of slights. They are committed by handguns, not assault rifles. Victims and perpetrators usually know each other, absent bullets going astray. Reforming the involuntary commitment laws and beefing up mental health services are largely irrelevant to these shootings, since though the shooters have serious problems with impulse control and are clearly a danger to themselves and others, few would be deemed mentally ill.

And both victims and perpetrators are disproportionately minority, by huge margins. New York City is emblematic of the country’s gun violence. According to victims and witnesses, blacks commit 80% of all shootings in New York, though they are 23% of the city’s residents. Add Hispanics and you account for 98% of all shootings. Whites commit a little over 1% of shootings, though they are 35% of the city’s population. These disproportions pertain across the country.

Similar statistics like these are repeated across the country.