I watched a really cool show in the History Channel last weekend called Gangland, and the specific episode I watched covered gang activity in Chicago. It covered the Black Disciples and other gangs which ran their crews out of government housing projects. It was actually quite fascinating. The common ideology that was purveyed from these former gang members who were interviewed for this show was that the gang gave them the love and respect that they couldn’t receive anywhere else. They felt like it was their only place to be a true man. Similar incidents are happening in different gangs all around the country, this particular story comes from Chattanooga, TN.

Timothy “Timboo” Evans confessed Thursday morning that he killed Adrian “A.D.” Patton.

But the only reason he did it, he told a Hamilton County Criminal Court jury, was because Skyline Bloods leader Michael “Mike-Mike” Daniels ordered him to do so.

“I felt like it was either me or (Patton) so I had no choice,” he said.

Prior to the day of the shooting, Evans said, he liked being part of the Skyline Bloods.

“I had no intention of leaving the gang,” he said. “I felt loved.”

And he loved Daniels, he said, because the gang leader “took care of me. I thought he loved me, too.”

After the shooting, he said, he felt sick and remorseful.

And when he learned that Daniels was going around telling people that he didn’t know why Evans had killed Patton, he said, he felt betrayed.

“He knew why I did it,” Evans insisted. “He told me to do it . . . It hurted me (when Daniels lied).”

It was at that point, he said, that he first wondered whether being in the gang was a good thing.

I have to question the honesty of Evans in his final statement. Everyone is born with an inherent knowledge of right from wrong. From stealing candy from the store as a child to committing murder as an adult, everyone is born with the knowledge of good and evil, and right from wrong. The day that Evans woke up and decided to join his gang, he wondered whether being in that gang was a good thing and he knew that it wasn’t.

I feel as if the culture that so many of these gang members come out of is being spawned and perpetuated by their senses of entitlement, and it’s our “compassionate” society which is fueling that. If you tell people that “You can’t make it on your own, so we’re going to help you” then you’re going to believe that you can’t make it on your own and that you need help. Certainly, people reject that notion and people rise up from lower standards and become wonderful members of society. But in large part, everyone, including gang members, like to take the easy way out.

I work hard for my family; I don’t expect handouts from any government entity, and I’m 100% sure that I appreciate my life much more than Evans appreciates his.To have a sense of entitlement means that you deserve what you didn’t earn or work for. When you make poor choices and you’re rewarded with more of what you deserve and didn’t earn or work for, it’s only more ingrained in your values. Gang members become such because they truly believe that whatever they want should be theirs. They were taught to take from the government, never taught to work for what they need, as their needs and desires grow, they have to appease that desire by doing things which aren’t legal.

Thus, the creation of organized crime (not in the mafia sense). Gang members could only get what they wanted by either taking it, or selling a product that was so easy and lucrative to do so, it was actually worth the work it took to exchange it.

Evans thought he couldn’t get love from anyone else. He thought that in order to be a man, he had to join this gang and conform to their way of life and live by their rules. He thought that his only way to success was to live a life of crime. What Evans didn’t realize is that literally anyone, regardless of where they come from, can capture respect, success, love without the risk of getting shot and having to murder someone else for that not to happen. It’s called the American Way.

This nation was founded on the ideal that anyone who worked hard enough, gave it their all, was diligent and compassionate and had the love and support from their family could make it. They could be successful. They could be rich! Everything you could imagine was at the tip of their fingers. This ideal isn’t only available to immigrants, or white people, or whoever. It’s available to every law-abiding citizen.

Entitlement took that hope away from Evans. Entitlement blinded him from the American Way. Entitlement virtually encapsulated Evans in the life he chose, and he’s now faced with murder.

I feel like the best way to help people is to force them to help themselves. To make them work hard for what they need and want, and to not give them handouts just because they come from a certain area of town. Certainly, there will always be people who simply don’t have the ability to do that, and those people should always be supported, but for the people who can, they should be made to do so. I work hard for my family; I don’t expect handouts from any government entity, and I’m 100% sure that I appreciate my life much more than Evans appreciates his.