The blindness to the obvious of the modern liberal is astounding, but never surprising. I just happened to see an article today by DeWayne Wickham, an African-American, about the gun violence that threatens blacks. This national tragedy has been all but overlooked by our progressive cultural elite, except when it becomes impossible to ignore, as when recently a young black girl, Hadiya Pendleton, aged 15, was gunned down in Chicago, the young black murder capital of America. This precious young lady had only the week before been to the president’s inauguration with her high school band: Impossible to ignore.

I read through Wickham’s piece in vain looking for some acknowledgement that the breakdown of the black family, especially in the inner city, and the absence of fathers and virtuous male role models, has some part to play in such egregious societal dysfunction. It’s almost as if, by magic, a culture that creates this kind of violence has no cause other than guns! Don’t you know, it’s the NRA’s fault! And we all know the obvious truth, that people don’t kill people, guns do.

There is no doubt about this fact: If there were no guns, there would be no deaths by guns, and fewer people would be murdered. I am completely confident that would be the case. Certainly murderous thugs bent on killing would find other instruments to inflict death, but guns are an extremely efficient killing technology. The problem is that there will always be guns, and lots of them. I’ve read well over 300 million in America alone. And then there’s that pesky Second Amendment.

The problem with liberal gun control bromides is they can’t work. Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, but anyone can run down to Indiana where gun control laws are more lax. California wants to become the gun control nirvana of America, but even if Democrats in that state got everything they wanted, there would still be plenty of guns left in California, and Mexico, Arizona and Nevada are not far away. Bad guys will always get guns if they want them badly enough. Maybe there are some ways to make it harder for them to get their hands on guns, but these will always be band-aid remedies. But modern liberals tend to be utopian, and they think reality will always bend to their political will. Just imagine how great life would be without guns, without nuclear weapons, without transfats, or smoking, or those irritating religious people who aren’t progressives, etc.

Gun control is typical for the modern liberal: pass some legislation that either does nothing or makes matters worse, feel self-righteous for doing something, then ignore the situation altogether. Reality often gets in the way, but not before much damage is often done. In this case, the damage is perpetuated by ignoring the root causes of black on black violence in America’s cities.

DeWayne Wickham is a perfect example of left-wing obtuseness. His conclusion is not only dubious, but manifestly untrue:

While young blacks are now disproportionately the victims of gun violence, this bloodshed is a cancer that — if left unchecked — will spread to the cul-de-sacs and bedroom communities into which those who think this is not their problem have retreated.

You have to wonder if he wishes this were true; then we white suburbanites would finally agree with the liberals: gun control now! But in fact, violence everywhere else but in the inner cities has gone down over the last two decades. The murder rate in 2011 is about the same as it was in 1969, but the population of America has grown by over 110 million people since then! Bedroom communities are as safe as they’ve been in 50 years, and one of the main reasons is you will find more married mothers and fathers living together there than you will find on the south side of Chicago. Maybe one day it will be OK for liberals to acknowledge this, but I’m not holding my breath.