10006: Cosby On Crime And Culture.

From The New York Daily News…

Bill Cosby: Trayvon Martin case is about guns, not race

Legendary comedian says calling George Zimmerman a racist doesn’t solve anything

By Philip Caulfield / New York Daily News

Legendary entertainer Bill Cosby said the national uproar over the killing of teen Trayvon Martin should be over guns, not race.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that aired Sunday, Cosby said calling George Zimmerman a racist was pointless.

“What is solved by saying, ‘He’s a racist, that’s why he shot the boy’?” Cosby said.

Since first speaking out about the case earlier this month, Cosby has repeatedly said that the Feb. 26 slaying of the unarmed teen shows there is a need to get guns off the streets.

“When a person has a gun, sometimes their mind clicks, that this thing will win arguments and straighten people out,” Cosby told CNN.

“I’m not saying you can’t have it in your home to protect yourself… you’ve got to protect yourself in your own home,” he added.

“But I also believe that when you tell me that you are going to protect the neighborhood that I live in, I don’t want you to have a gun,” he said. “I want you to be able to see something, report it and get out of the way.”

Cosby also said during the interview, which was taped on Thursday, that he once owned a gun but no longer does.

In the past two decades, the 74-year-old comedian has become outspoken on issues of violence, parenting, education and drug use in black and minority communities.

His own son, Ennis, was shot dead by a Ukrainian restaurant worker while changing a flat tire on the side of a Los Angeles highway in 1997.

Last week, Cosby told NBC’s David Gregory, “When you have a gun, you may not realize it, but you put it on your person and you mean to pull (the trigger) and kill somebody.”

With News Wire Services

9893: Easter Bunny Packs Heat…?

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Pfleger fires on toy guns in Easter baskets

By Maudlyne Ihejirika. Staff Reporter

There was a time when kids wanting toy guns had limited media images of cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers to emulate. Today, not so.

So the Rev. Michael Pfleger said he is challenging the sale of the toys — in Easter baskets — to a generation plagued by more violent and rampant use of guns in their own neighborhoods.

“I am writing to express my concern and outrage that Kmart is selling Easter baskets, which are obviously for children, with toy guns in them,” Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church in Auburn-Gresham, wrote to officials at the big box retailer, in a Mar. 9 letter obtained by the Sun-Times.

“With the increasing gun violence in Chicago and across this country, I am amazed that you would choose to offer toy guns to our children to make them comfortable with playing with them. I am asking you to remove any baskets with toy guns in them from your store’s shelves immediately,” Pfleger wrote.

The toys in question are plastic water guns or Nerf dart shooters in sizes ranging from pistol- to nearly rifle-length, contained in Easter baskets sold by the retailer for prices starting at $9.99.

They’re not just sold at Kmart, but at other retailers e.g. Meijer, Toys R Us, Walgreen’s and Walmart.

“We respect the opinions of our customers,” Chris Brathwaite, spokesman for Sears Holdings, Kmart’s parent company, said Tuesday. “However, we believe these items are clearly packaged as water toys and are almost identical to items sold by many other retailers.”

The Kmart baskets were brought to his attention by community members, Pfleger said, the same week that saw several shootings citywide and a 22-year-old shot and killed in the middle of the day in the White Castle’s parking lot in Auburn-Gresham. He subsequently learned they’re sold all over, “which goes to show that this has become a popular Easter basket item, and my anger on it is double,” said Pfleger.

“As a Christian I’m insulted that Kmart or any store would use this celebration of life to have images of guns in Easter baskets, encouraging parents to buy them for their children. But equally important is that any psychiatrist will tell you a child who gets comfortable playing with toy guns and pointing them at people as a child becomes comfortable picking them up as an adult. In a nation that’s plagued with gun violence, neither Kmart nor any other store should be selling guns in Easter baskets to our kids.”

Brathwaite said the retailer would be contacting Pfleger about the concern, adding, “Kmart is committed to being a valued community partner.” Pfleger said he and his parishioners will make the same demand of other retailers selling toy guns in Easter baskets, and “I hope folks will do it throughout the city.”