The war at home, v.1.

MIAMI (AP) Sept. 15 - The spray of bullets that killed a police officer and hurt three others this week came from something increasingly common on this city’s streets: a high-powered assault weapon, fast becoming the gun of choice for gang members and violent criminals.

And when the guns, once found solely in the hands of soldiers, are aimed at officers on patrol, there’s little authorities can do to escape.

“It’s almost like we have water pistols going up against these high-powered rifles,” said John Rivera, president of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association. “Our weaponry and our bulletproof vests don’t match up to any of those types of weapons.”

Federal officials don’t compile statistics on the number of crimes involving assault weapons like the AK-47, and municipalities’ numbers across the country are patchwork. But in Miami, at least, there are signs it is becoming a major problem.

In 2005, the Miami-Dade Police Department reported two homicides involving an assault rifle; last year there were 10. That agency covers numerous unincorporated areas in the nation’s eighth-largest county, but not its biggest cities, which have their own police forces.

The  Miami Police Department said 15 of its 79 homicides last year involved assault weapons, up from the year before. This year, already 12 of the 60 homicides have involved the high-power guns…

The rest here.   Meanwhile, in The City of Frequent Fratricide:

With the number of homicides in Philadelphia this year approaching 300, black community activists yesterday announced that they are calling for 10,000 men to volunteer to deter violence by going into selected areas of the city to be a visible presence.

“Every day, people are dying on our streets,” Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson said as he was joined by about a dozen community leaders at a morning news conference at the Francis Myers Recreation Center at 58th Street and Kingsessing Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia.

The program seeks volunteers of all races, but especially African Americans, to attend an Oct. 21 gathering at the Liacouras Center at Temple University, and volunteer to take a stand against violence…

The rest of that story is here.  That first story scares me to death, and I don’t live anywhere near Florida.  My nephew just graduated from the New Jersey State Police Academy, and is now a full-time police officer.  I am very proud of him, but I also worry.

So now more than ever, it seems we have weapons of war pouring into the streets of America, and – finally - some concerned citizens are taking their communities’ health and safty and futures into their own hands.  Funny how we never hear much about our own urban (and suburban, and rural) terrorism from our politicians, especially the two posses running for President from both major parties.  They all seem very concerned with what’s happening in someone else’s country, and in using that sad story as a way to pander for votes.  But the war here at home?  The war involving criminals and drug dealers and inter-state (and international) gangs and shoot-outs over “disrespect” and kids who are bullied and such?  Not a peep. And while the Corporate Media is quick to show the blood in the streets, they, too, are complicit in the silence.  Has the issue of gun control in this country come up even once in any of the so-called “debates” so far this campaign season?  The daily terror that permeates so many American communities, which keeps kids home from school and parents and elders hiding in their homes, is just as great as we’d find in any Baghdad neighborhood.   And yet, we get… nothing.

Except more killing.  And more fear.

(Photo: AP)