Ermias Asghedom, who first of all looks for all the world to be ethnically Italian to me rather than black, died at the hands of a man whose street name is Shitty Cuz. Shitty was able to unload multiple rounds into Ermias as he lay dying on the asphalt in front of his own store in Crenshaw. He also owned the shopping center, if I'm not mistaken. His enterpreneurial acumen, goodwill towards those he chose to help in the neighborhood -- including the man he was speaking to at the time, who was also shot -- and supposed street smarts did not amount to enough to prevent his own death. Shitty, by the way, decided to add insult to injury by kicking Ermias in the head after mortally wounding him. He then jogged away.

What was needed at that moment to prevent his death is very simple: more gun violence. Had he been armed, Shitty would have known that -- or would have quickly found out -- and would have been unable or unwilling to casually walk back up on him two and three times after the initial shots and unload uninterrupted shots straight into his head while standing right over him. If his bodyguard had been armed, and had come out of the store shooting. If anyone had been armed and fired back Shitty would have only been able to get those first shots in. And apparently Ermias lived for half an hour after being shot which is a testament to extraordinary strength. But that wasn't enough.

What was needed is very simple: bullets flying in the OTHER direction, towards Shitty. This is not a hard concept to understand. And yet anti-gun folks will say but then there might have been more collateral damage! As opposed to Ermias being definitely killed and the other guy wounded? What is it with religiously anti-gun people that imagine someone defending against a shooting by firing randomly in every direction. Even the mere PRESENCE of a gun on the waist of the deceased would have made Shitty unable to do what he did because he would have had to contend with being shot at himself.

The irony? The other guy that was shot will likely go to jail himself, now paralyzed from the shooting, because he was speaking to Ermias who is a known and still affiliated gang member which violates the terms of his parole. And given that so many people in the orbit of Ermias were also gang-affiliated and/or criminals, the fact that guns are not allowed for felons comes strongly into play.

Keep in mind also that Ermias called Shitty a snitch and banned him from the store. Snitch, by the way, being immediately understood by everyone to be a bad thing. Working with law enforcement is the BAD thing. Keep that in mind. The good guy is the one that calls out the guy supposedly working for the good guys. That's the twisted moral compass everyone involved was living in.

Choosing to say in his neighborhood -- to be a large fish in a small pond, relatively speaking -- turned out to be an act of hubris (the hubris being the expectation that he wouldn't be murdered) by a man who was held up as a street smart genius. Jermaine Dupri has called him Jesus Christ. His memory will go on forever as street names are changed, basketball courts have murals added to them, and the local Congressional Representative has his name and deeds recorded into the Congressional Record.

Many are lauding his foresight for setting up trust accounts for his kids. But at the end of the day, they would have preferred their father. The truth is that his calculation to stay in the neighborhood, unarmed, continue to be known as a gang member and not renounce that affiliation while still dealing with individuals such as Shitty Cuz was fatally flawed. 

The dramatic conclusion reached by some is that he was murdered by "them" for the Dr. Sebi documentary that he was working on. That's a lofty, conspiratorial notion that -- as is often the case -- turns out to be melodramatic and contradicted by the evidence that his murder was much more banal: killed, in essence, by the very streets that he refused to separate himself from and in which he insisted on remaining while unarmed.

There are many lessons that can be drawn from his life and death. The need for gun control isn't one of them. A gun could have, and likely would have, saved his life. There's one lesson right there.