Gumbel on Gang Violence: 'Why's Nobody Talking Gun Control?'

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Bryant Gumbel is still around, popping up monthly on HBO, which provides him with a platform to continue forwarding liberal nostrums unrelated to reality. On this month's edition of Real Sports, the sports news magazine he anchors, Gumbel decided the answer to inner-city gang violence is...more gun control!

Following a story on a rash of seven shootings with five deaths of high school athletes in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Portsmouth region of Virginia, an area reporter Jon Frankel described as “besieged by gangs, guns and fear,” Frankel told Gumbel “that there has been a real growth of gang activity in the area” as authorities have “really seen tremendous growth of these kids, you know, putting down stakes and saying 'this is our turf, stop messing with us.'” To which, Gumbel responded:

Let me get on my own soapbox here: I mean, they're talking about doubling the anti-gang unit. Why's nobody talking gun control?

As if gangs don't use guns to murder in states with strict gun control.

From the in-studio discussion, after the piece ran, on the April edition of Real Sports which first aired on Tuesday night, April 14:

BRYANT GUMBEL: Seven shooting in such a short period. Do they have any theories as to why the sudden escalation?

JON FRANKEL: The authorities in the area will tell you that there has been a real growth of gang activity in the area -- not just Norfolk, but the whole Hampton Roads area, all these cities in Southeast Virginia and that over the last three years they've really seen tremendous growth of these kids, you know, putting down stakes and saying “this is our turf, stop messing with us.”

GUMBEL: Let me get on my own soapbox here: I mean, they're talking about doubling the anti-gang unit. Why's nobody talking gun control?

FRANKEL: Well, I think in the piece, Billy Cook, who is on the school board, talked about the fact that you just having a gun to defend yourself puts us all at danger. So he does address that issue by saying, “hey, lay down the guns, let's stop this nonsense.”

GUMBEL: But no solutions in sight?

FRANKEL: No.

GUMBEL That's sad.