Gunfire on Sterling Place Near Franklin --Sterling Pl. Blues

MHA wrote: Wow. So sorry to here about your grandfather.

Thanks MHA. It happened a very long time ago but it's something that I will never forget. It changed my family for the worse.

Photogirl, Where you going to be.I wll be in Brooklyn mid July. Went back to Sterling Place about 13 years ago with my brother. The building my grandfather owned now had a small grocery type store for chips and sodas etc. The cashier was behind bullet proof glass. I looked it up recently on Google Earth and looks like the downstairs businsess is now a flat. When I was a child Lowman's was I think on Bedford and Sterling and was considered upscale. There was a fancy Chrysler Showroom, Art Deco also on Bedford, that I heard was converted into something.
I had heard the neighborhood had vastly improved but after reading about the gunshots, not so sure.
My family has long deep roots in Brooklyn. My grandmother on my mother's side, settled in the 1880's and my grandfather a little later. He bought the building I believe around the turn of the century. It must have been really awesome when my mother was growing up. My father's family moved to Brooklyn much later. They came during WWII.
I have lived in SF Bay area for many years but still have strong feelings for Brooklyn.
My mother told of what it was like for her and it sounded great. She could walk to Ebbet's Field, Botanical Garden's, Prospect Park. Took the train street car to Coney Island. She went to Erasmus. She hated it when she got married and moved to LI.

Maybe the NRA could do a membership drive on Franklin Ave as well. ...it could diversify their membership.

....but let's focus on something more effective than membership and brochures ....the thing many of these young men lack: Classes.

As you may be aware, there are several ranges near NYC where folks can take basic pistol safety classes.

Most require membership, but there are still a few public ones left. Basically, one can take the class without owning a gun. I'm pretty sure that no criminal background check is made before the classes, so persons who aren't able to legally own a gun (such as felons) can at least learn how to prevent accidental dischage. One of the first things students learn is that many guns even have a device called a "safety", but wait there is more:

1. How to safely load a gun.
2. How to wear a gun in a protective holster.
3. How to fire a gun in a way that you hit only your intended target.

....if implemented on a widescale, I bet this would result in less people shooting themselves in the hand during the early morning on Franklin Avenue.

http://www.nra.org/nralocal.aspx

....meanwhile, let's simultaneously try to keep folks in school. Violence is bad, people should find other ways to support themselves.

P.S. This guy is going to be the laughing stock in prison. He'll have to tell people he is doing a bid for shooting himself in the hand!

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when I used the words "they" and "them", I was referring to criminals in general. Stop making excuses for drug peddaling murderers who are the only ones bringing your neighborhood down. look at the situation for what it really is.

I said you were making excuses for criminals, never used the word black. when I was reading your posts, I felt really uncomfortable with the way you used the words white folks, white man, white white white. I just don't see any reason to refer to other human beings by their skin color, it seems to separate us even more.

The real victims in these neighborhoods are the stray dogs and cats roaming the streets. they can't go to a church or homeless shelter and ask for food or a jacket or a warm place to sleep. the pitbulls who are used as show when theyre young and strong then are thrown out when their owners realize they have to be cared for. did anyone here stop and think about the homeless animals in this freezing cold or in the snow storm? i found dead kittens under a pile of snow in someones backyard, imagine freezing to death. or think about the cows who are hanging from their ankles right now waiting to be slaughtered so they can be on your dinner plate and then thrown away because you're full. or the pig that sits in a crate for its entire life, not able to even turn around. then has its piglets ripped away from her while she screams. and her scream sounds like a human scream and you hear the pain. that is suffering, that is something to think about. not a kid on the street with his life ahead of him having things handed to him but he decides to throw it all away.

Let it go, jacqueline. You're not telling MHA anything he hasn't been told before.

He likes separatism. He thinks people get uncomfortable when he talks about "whitefolks" because he's hitting at some deep, troubling, and conspiratorial truths about the nature of the social order. He believes cultural pluralism is nothing but a ploy to secure the white man's position at the top.

Until we begin to cause harm to others, we're entitled to perceive reality however we like. I don't see any point in trying to change his mind.

'Dailyheights' is threatening to kick me off this forum because I'm "picking fights" . that's pretty funny. i guess i'm a cyber bully or something