GUN, DRUG LAWS EXACERBATE PROFILING

A reader writes:

"In your Sept. 19 column in describing racial profiling, I understand and I
am sure any moron understands the reasoning for a person boarding an
airliner and who looks to be a person of Mideast decent being profiled or
eyed a little more closely.

"But in your analogy of profiling you said `young black men being stopped by
police when they are somewhere where they seem out place.' I would like to
know if you really think that is what `profiling' is, or is that something
you have convinced yourself of?

"A young black person stopped on the street at 2 a.m. in the morning is
profiling and simply good police work maybe, depending which street and
where. I have been across this country by car many times and so have some of
my friends yet we have been stopped numerous times and the story is all the
same, `you were crossing over the line a bit' or some other silly reason.
And then they always want to search your car, and I have never given
permission for that.

"So by your definition I and many other black Americans are out of place by
being on an interstate highway and also when they are in numerous suburbs on
the main streets going to malls. Or the gentleman Who was stopped by Metro
and Henderson Police and detained for hours recently along with his family
while driving a U-Haul van, was he out of place or is he different than any
other Americans who move in a U-Haul? I wonder, since a large number of
young whites purchase and use drugs, are they being stopped and interrogated
as much when they are in U-Hauls?

"If we have a certain place that we are supposed to be relegated to or if we
are not subject to the Fourth Amendment like any other American then why not
just tell us? But in the mean time stop pretending that racial profiling is
something that is innocent and good police work when it is and always will
be in many cases, harassment."

I replied:

My example was indeed that a security agent had three minutes to interview a
black American man, an Asian American woman, and a Saudi visitor named
Mahmood before deciding whether they'd be allowed to board a cross-country
airliner. To concentrate on the Saudi is "racial profiling," and I will
stand by my position that when lives depend on it, the security officer
should certainly sacrifice "political correctness" for common sense, and
spend most of his time quizzing Mr. Mahmood. (Which is not to say that
law-abiding Arab-Americans should be rounded up or systematically harassed,
of course.)

As to the question of police either profiling or harassing young black men,
I was raised a hand-wringing, guilt-wracked liberal; I've wept my tears and
cursed the wind about How Terrible Things Are, and I'm thoroughly sick of
it.

What I'm especially sick of is promoting "solutions" that don't work.

Let me tell you what happens when a police department is told to stop
"racial profiling." The cops (simply) ... lie about it. ...

Here's what might work: Repeal all the drug and gun laws. Not only are they
enforced in a racist manner, they were originally conceived and authored
with racist intent. (Who carried "cheap Saturday night specials"? Urban
blacks, of course. Ban 'em. The far more deadly long guns favored by white
people? No problem. Who consumed marijuana, cocaine and opium? Mexicans,
blacks and Asians, of course. Ban 'em. The drug that causes the most deaths
in this country -- violent deaths as well as traffic fatalities? Alcohol,
favored by white people. No problem.)

When a cop sees a young black man walking down the street sucking on a
reefer and sporting a gun in a hip holster, nothing any more criminal is
taking place than if a cop sees a fat white guy sucking on a stogie while
loading his deer rifles into the car for a hunting trip. In each case, a
subject is consuming a consciousness-altering drug while handling firearms.
Yet -- in a nation where the 2nd and 14th Amendments guarantee everyone the
right to bear arms, and where the 9th Amendment guarantees every adult the
right to consume any drug he pleases -- no crime is committed unless or
until either of these fellows brandishes his weapon at someone else in a
threatening manner.

Yet which of these two men is going to get arrested -- heck, drop-kicked and
shot on sight if he refuses to "kiss the ground and spread 'em"? ...

Yet will "the leaders of the black community" and so-called "civil
libertarians" join with me in calling for an end to the very laws which lead
police to figure they may "get a good bust" if they pull over and search a
car containing young black or Hispanic men who may possess "illegal" drugs
and weapons?

Noooo. They whine that they want more of a police-state presence in their
neighborhoods, to "clean out the gang and drug problems."

The answer is to change the laws ... . Legalize drugs, and our current inner
city drug gangs will go out of business just as quickly as did the
rum-runners and Speakeasies of the 1920s, when we ended Prohibition.

Will you join me in pushing to get thousands of these racist drug and gun
laws stricken from the books -- meantime teaching our fellow citizens that
they have a moral duty not to enforce these racist and unconstitutional laws
when they're on a jury?

Do you really want to solve the problem ... or just complain about The
Injustice Of It All?