OPEN SEASON ON YOUNG BLACK MEN

HOMICIDE IS the leading cause of death for young blacks, according to a study released yesterday by the Washington, D.C.-based Violence Policy Center.

And shamefully, Pennsylvania leads the nation in the number of black victims; in 2004, the most recent year statistics are available, Pennsylvania reported 398 homicides with black victims, a rate of 29.5 per 100,000, one-and-a-half times the national rate among black victims, and six times the national rate of all homicides.

Over half- 65 percent - came from Philadelphia.

Firearms were the cause of deaths of nearly 90 percent of these.

We can almost hear the sermons that will be delivered from pulpits on this subject come Sunday, especially those in black churches:

Why are young blacks killing each other? (Most of these homicides are intra-racial.) Why is it OK that somewhere along the line, open season was declared on young black men?

And how did it happen that blacks make up nearly half of all homicides but only 13 percent of the nation's population?

This new study should be discussed not only in church pulpits, but the bully pulpits of the mayor and police commissioner. They say there is little that can be done beyond long-term programs, like stemming drop-out rates, busting curfew offenders, and creating more jobs and opportunities.

And there is truth in that. But as the Violence Policy Center points out, while we know that gun violence is a symptom of much larger, hard-to-fix problems like poverty and education, guns occupy a unique position: They're a problem that can be fixed more quickly, by passing better laws.

"Quick" is relative when you live in Pennsylvania, of course. Attempts to force the state Legislature to allow the city to have some control over its gun laws was a bust as little a four months ago.

Then again, "quick" is no piece of cake when it comes to Congress, either, who is responsible for the outrageoously lax gun laws now on the books. Actually, we call to task not only Congress but the National Rifle Association, which breaks into hives at the prospect of any criminal not able to get his hands on as many guns as he wants, whenever he wants them, in the name of Liberty.

Thanks to the NRA, we have something called the Handgun Owner Protection Act that severely undercut the enforcement powers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Passed in 1986, the result of that stellar legislation - conveniently found in a report released last week by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence - is that most guns used in homicides started out as legal guns. These guns flood the streets, thanks to lax laws that allow straw purchasers to buy multiple guns from crooked licensed gun dealers who have little to fear from the ATF.

Because the act handcuffs the ATF, it can't bust the shops, or conduct surprise inspections more than once a year; it can keep records for only a limited amount of time, and have a steep burden of proof to shut down shady dealers who supply the streets with guns by selling to obvious straw purchasers. Meanwhile, the NRA, masters of faux-liberty rehetoric, continues to claim that we don't need new laws, but need to enforce the laws we have. That's bunk, because the laws we have actually limit enforcement. The NRA isn't aren't pulling the triggers on the guns that kill so many black youth. But it has practically gift-wrapped the guns the offenders used. To us, that makes them complicit in the city's shameful body count. *