King of All Ironies

The top headlines on the front page of my local newspaper today:

"A DREAM - AND SO MUCH MORE"

fronting a feature article in the Today section on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, who fought for racial equality, non-violence, and peace.

And right below it:

"Weapons seizures plummet on Turnpike"

Uproar on racial profiling spurred State Police shift

Cops and politicians call Interstate 95 the "Iron Pipeline" because it is a popular route for criminals smuggling firearms from the South into Newark and other Northeastern cities where gun violence abounds.

A big link in that pipeline is the New Jersey Turnpike, where the State Police used to seize scores of guns every year. But they don't anymore.

Gun arrests and gun seizures have plummeted on the Turnpike in the last decade, according to data provided by the State Police in response to a request under the Open Public Records Act.... For many years, troopers made a priority of pulling over Turnpike motorists and searching their cars in hopes of catching drug traffickers and gun runners. That effort was abandoned in 1999, after a state investigation found troopers were stopping drivers based on their skin color, a civil rights abuse known as racial profiling..."

So a new restrained police policy in the wake of accusations of discrimination against minorities, is now being taken advantage of to support gun smuggling and violent crime. Which also, incidently, disproportionally impacts those very minority groups.

If only Dr. King were here to make just one more speech...

(For a less cynical take on today's holiday, see my post from last year, "MLK on Zionism".)