You Cannot Fix a Problem You Don't Admit Exists

From Cops & Congress by Annie Dance we get the following. WATCH: Asheville Officials Link Deadly Downtown Shooting to Retaliatory Violence of 'Groups'

During questioning from reporters, Stepp was asked directly whether police considered the violence to be gang-related.

She stopped short of labeling the suspects as gang members.

“I would say these are two groups of individuals,” Stepp said. “I would say there are ties to them knowing each other and committing ongoing retaliatory acts against one another.”

But the problem is the legal gun owners in North Carolina, or so says Esther Manheimer, the Mayor of Asheville.

The mayor argued that North Carolina lawmakers have increasingly relaxed firearm laws over recent years, saying those policy decisions have contributed to more guns in communities.

Because she sees the law-abiding in the same frame as gang members, because she refuses to see that gangs exist. They are just groups of people. That's all.

“Personally, I would like to see gun ownership and the ability to carry a gun greatly restricted,” Manheimer said. “I don’t think it makes a community safer.”

Because otherwise she would have to deal with gangs and individuals, and not her totalitarian impulses to control the law abiding.