More about Derrion Albert's murder, and the response

In yesterday's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner column, I wrote about the savage murder of 16-year-old honors student Derrion Albert. I focused primarily on cynical (and bizarre) efforts by the citizen disarmament lobby to try to turn a bludgeoning murder into a call for more restrictive gun laws--the ICHV's Thom Mannard was the star of that discussion.

Today, I have a bit of follow-up.

First, we have Ellen Alberding, president of the Joyce Foundation (you remember the Joyce Foundation--major source of funding for just about every citizen disarmament effort in the U.S., whose board of directors Barack Obama sat on for eight years), and her reaction.

We welcome the opportunity to talk about a comprehensive strategy to combat youth violence. But let's remember that the beating death of Derrion is in some ways unusual.

Every week young people here and in other cities are slain. Some are beaten like Derrion but in the great majority of cases the weapon of choice is a gun.

Alberding was certainly far less offensive than Mannard, but she, too, hopes to exploit a beating death as justification for more restrictive gun laws (in the city with the most restrictive gun laws in the nation).

Another, somewhat surprising response, was from Snuffy Pfleger. Back in May, you might remember, Snuffy ordered the U.S. flag at Saint Sabina to be hung upside-down. The intent, evidently, was to draw national attention to the violence (particularly youth violence) taking place in Chicago. Snuffy is, of course, yet another who acts as if the problem in Chicago is not the violent, predatory, gangbanger thugs who commit the violence, but the guns (which are already outlawed in Chicago) they often use to commit that violence.

That's why it surprised me that Snuffy is apparently pleased by what he heard from Duncan and Holder (who never mentioned guns), and now plans to turn the flag right side-up again.

St. Sabina Catholic Church's Fr. Mike Pfleger, says new efforts to stem violence among young people in Chicago have given him reason for hope and so, Sunday, he plans to turn right-side up the American flag he turned upside down months ago.

In early May, the activist priest turned the flag upside down to signal "distress" over the gun violence that was taking the lives of so many young people.

What has him so happy, when so many other citizen disarmament advocates are fuming?

Yesterday, he was part of a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in which the federal government promised $500-thousand in extra help to try to reduce the amount of teen violence around Fenger High School on the South Side. At the meeting were Obama cabinet members, Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as Mayor Daley and other community and religious leaders.

Ah--question answered--a cool half-million can buy a fair amount of cheerfulness. As Snuffy himself says, "it's all about the Benjamins."

Finally, it seems that Snuffy's usual joined-at-the-hip buddy, Jesse Jackson, is not nearly as happy:

Some were community activists and faith-based groups offended that they had not been invited to the meetings with Holder and Duncan.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was among them.

"They're not talking to the people," Jackson said. "They're talking to each other. This is top-down."

It's enough to make you want to "cut [somebody's] nuts out," isn't it, Jesse?