ABSTRACT
The experiences recounted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Geoffrey Canada took place at a time when firearms were less available to gang members than they are today. Gang culture revolves around who owns the streets. The glut of handguns has made life dangerous in some neighborhoods, with deaths far outnumbering those from the highly publicized use of assault rifles in crowded locations, such as took place in Orlando, Florida in June 2016 and many subsequent examples. National and state efforts to use the criminal justice system to stop drug use in the United States were based on mass incarceration, largely a result of federal laws and guidelines that called for mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug-related crimes. The resources of American society are not fairly distributed among the racial groups. African Americans suffer from poor health care, poor education, poor public services, and a housing market that keeps them constantly on the move from one rat trap to another.
