“And then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad,’ where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues.“, former President Barack Obama speaking at an event hosted by “The Obama Foundation” in Berlin, Germany

Seems like a lot of chutzpah giving a speech as the keynote speaker at an event hosted by yourself, but I digress.

What I find interesting is that President Obama felt he needed to explain the concept of a “circular firing squad” is to the German audience. He should have used the more colloquial description of a “Polish Firing Squad” and then all the Germans would have collectively said “Yah, Ich verstehen“; “Yes, I understand”.

No one ever called it a “circular firing squad”. Everyone used to use the more ‘racist’ term Polish Firing Squad.  And we all know how the Germans treated the Poles in World War II.

But then I grew up in racist America.

“This is very personal to so many of us. Me, because I’m a black man, and black males are six percent of the nation’s population. But they make up the majority of homicide victims in this country”, Spartacus Booker on taking down the NRA and punishing law abiding firearms owners as part of his presidential “policy” plan.

One more time, let’s look at the FACTS.

Here are the 15 leading causes of death in the United States from the 2016 Vital Statistic Report from the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease)
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
3. Accidents (unintentional injuries)
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases
5. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
6. Alzheimer’s disease
7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
8. Influenza and pneumonia
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis
(kidney disease)
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide)
11. Septicemia
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal
disease (hypertension)
14. Parkinson’s disease
15. Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids

You can read the report HERE

Umm, I’m not a super smart guy like Spartacus, but I don’t see HOMICIDE in the list. Of course I’m not a black man so it must not be that personal to me, and therefore that must be what is clouding my vision of the FACTS.  Let me squint at it more.

Digging into the report, 38,658 people died in firearms involved incidences. Of those, 14,415 were homicides involving firearms. To put that into some perspective, 35,862 people died from FALLING. More than twice as many people died FALLING DOWN than from HOMICIDES in which a firearm was involved . But once again, I’m not as wise and black like  Spartacus and I can only see FACTS.

Let’s keep digging. Of the 14,415 firearms related homicides, 8,343, the majority, were committed by blacks. 3,370 were committed by whites. 2,287 were committed by Hispanics. 230 were committed by Asians and 152 were committed by Pocahontas Warren’s tribal members.  Caveat, Table 8 on page 42 of the report, where the preceding numbers came from, does not add up correctly.  There is a discrepancy of 33 between the individual totals by race and the summary total of 14,415.  If you’re checking the math, that is their error and not mine.

According to FBI data also from 2016, 90% of HOMICIDES perpetrated against blacks were COMMITTED BY BLACKS.

One more time to put things into perspective.  Spartacus should address the 7,500 black folk who commit homicides against other blacks, if this is such a PERSONAL issue.  He could hold a rally at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.  It will seem extremely empty as all the offenders would fill less than 14% of the seats in the stadium.

With an estimated 118 MILLION households which own firearms, Spartacus should PERSONALLY have that stadium talk with HIS PEOPLE to STOP killing each other RATHER than punishing the vast majority who DO NOT COMMIT HOMICIDES regardless of their RACE.

But as I said, I’m not as smart as Spartacus.