Singrdave posted a response on a thread about Tookie Williams, the cofounder of the LA Crips who is being currently considered for clemency.

Do you remember September 11, 2001? I do. I remember as the towers were burning, our nation's resolve to fight a "war on terror". It was that resolve that prompted a number of changes, some of them insipid, some of them worthwhile, but all geared to fight terror at home and abroad.

We have a terrorism problem in our nation that we refuse to confront. It's not the nation's various militia groups: most of those are law abiding citizens even as they espouse virulent anti-government views. No, it is our nation's street gangs.

While I was unable (due to aforementioned internet wonkiness today) to compile the most up to date statistics, I found some compelling statistics that should cause us to examine the facts: in 1999, more than 840,000 of our young people were estimated to be involved in street gangs, and there were 2,570 homicide deaths among youths ages 10 to 19 in 1998 (source: Link ). This is more than the number of soldiers killed in Iraq AND Afghanistan since 9/11.

While I could not compare similar years, the number of terrorism deaths was 1907 in 625 attacks in 2004 (source: National Counterterrorism Center). The gang number represents deaths NATIONWIDE, the terrorism number represents deaths WORLDWIDE.

When Yassir Arafat was still alive, I long opposed the acclaim he received from the MSM. He was a terrorist made into a "head of state" by a leftist media, and he was undeserving of his acclaim. Tookie Williams is equally undeserving of the acclaim and of the proposed clemency.

There's an old saying that if you want to kill a snake you cut it off at the head. Tookie Williams is personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths since his Crips and other copycat gangs have been in existence. He is personally responsible for a reign of terror that has played out on our inner city streets for more than two decades and has done more to HURT the cause of racial equality than to help it. A few children's books won't cover that balm.

The war on terror on a domestic front will begin when Tookie Williams is executed. I hate to say that, but sometimes the truth DOES hurt.