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'Bang': Guns, rap, and silence - violence in rap music
National Review, April 16, 2001 by Jay Nordlinger
Ted Pascoe speaks for Do It for the Kids!, a gun-control group in Colorado. "We don't address it," he says of the rap issue. "We have enough trouble with the Second Amendment without attacking the First as well." Meaning? "Well, there is a perception in this country that individuals enjoy the protections conferred by the Second Amendment. But that amendment only confers on states the right to maintain militias. So the individual has no standing in court to make Second Amendment claims. However, Americans tend to believe they do have the right to bear arms. So, it's troublesome, because whenever you start talking about passing stronger gun laws, a lot of folks-even if they're not involved in the issue, or vested in it-can invoke the Second Amendment and sometimes effectively take the wind out of your sails." A stance against rap, says Pascoe, would only bring trouble: "The large number of gun-control groups don't want to be seen as attacking every element in the Constitution, or more than one. I think that the First Amendment contains rights that we do enjoy-that individuals have First Amendment rights."
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The confusion of rights and responsibilities-of "what you got a right to do and what is right to do," as the supreme fogey Bill Bennett puts it-is an old one.
Andy Pelosi, who represents New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, says that his group "really focuses on legislative issues-we've done a little bit of violence in the media, but not rap." He makes the point that "it would be unfair to look at one genre without looking at the others. You could make a case about heavy metal, alternative rock-you wouldn't want to single out just rap." This would, indeed, be a painful step for most liberals. It would involve a clash of their pieties: gun control- outright demonization of the gun-and a taboo against taking issue with black culture in any of its aspects. The old "No enemies to the left" might mingle with a new slogan: "No enemies among blacks" (with Clarence Thomas and the other Toms excepted, of course).
The country is engaged in a great debate over gun control; but there should be no disagreement about the awfulness-why not go all the way? the evil-of the most violent, dehumanizing, and desensitizing rap. The inner city is bleeding from gun crime. White America should probably think harder about the perpetual Columbines taking place in ghettos. Of course, many excuse rap on grounds that it merely reflects life on the mean streets. And whether this stuff has bloody consequences is an open question. In 1993, a rapper called Masta Ace, talking to the St. Petersburg Times, said, "It's like a Schwarzenegger movie-you don't come out wanting to shoot anybody." But he quickly had a second thought: "I think it does shape mentalities and helps develop a callousness to where you could really shoot somebody and not think twice about it."
Sure: There's only so much a gun-control group or conservative alarm- raisers or anyone else can do about (what might be termed) hate rap. But activists, who love to talk-it is their principal activity-might at least talk. A group called the Campus Alliance to End Gun Violence proclaims as its number-one position, "Gun violence disproportionately preys on the young. Silence kills. We must speak." Well, all right: Minus a right-wing militia or two, there is only one class of people-an extremely wealthy and popular class of people-that actually exalts gun violence. So . . . ?
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