We have a 2015 crime demographic summary in our Charleston SC newspaper this Sunday morning (Jan 3-2016). I read the data, but, yes, I am not sure what to do with the information. Shaking my head does nothing. I could point out the stats are dominated by blacks and guns, but the most horrific crime was done by a white punk in a church.

I don't know the solutions either, but I remain convinced that more guns on the street by citizens is NOT the answer. Very rare, are the stories of armed civilians riding/shooting to the rescue. (U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's attacker was subdued by unarmed heroes). What we mostly read about, are civilians dropping their guns and sending off a round through someone or something else, cleaning their gun and sending off a round through someone or something else, pointing/playing with what they thought was an unloaded gun and sending off a round through someone or something else. Pretty stupid, and totally preventable.

A small handgun in my opinion should be used strictly at home, for home protection. We have had several daytime home invasions here in the Charleston metro region, and they have ended badly for the bad guy in almost every instance. In one case a 12 or 13 yr old had to shoot an invader, who later died. Ugly. Stupid. Preventable.

There is no eliminating the 5 percenters, there will always be bad apples in any barrel. Working on the contributing factors to poverty, hopelessness, anger. and frustration would seem to be the logical path.

Re-think public school funding; clean up the walking paths to those schools; equip them as equitably as the suburban schools; job training programs; eliminate/overhaul welfare programs, as the state of Maine successfully has done (look it up); go after absentee landlords on sub-standard units; educate teenagers on: sex, education, money matters, setting goals, graduating h.s., how to behave/react when interacting with police just doing their jobs; corporate investment in run-down areas, such as brand-name grocery, retail, and banking companies, instead of fast food and liquor and pawn stores.

Most of the above requires new mindsets more than a ton of money. Hard to do when folks keep re-electing the same people.