Fired Up

On Sunday, I was just talking to the UofWashington girls about how usually crimes in university towns are domestic in nature. When I was in Ann Arbor, there was one murder: a female grad student shot by her boyfriend after a domestic dispute. Random murders are rare in college towns, victims and perpretators often know each other well.

Then Monday happened. Thirty three people dead, just like that, in a span of two hours. It scares you, angers you, saddens you, confuses you. Imagine taking notes for a class when suddenly someone comes in and shoots your professor in the head. One students said she crouched down, pretending to be dead while the shooter sprayed bullets all around the classroom. He then left but came back in thirty seconds later and started shooting again! I cannot imagine a scarier moment than that. Wondering if today is the day you die, if the shooter will find you and decide to point the gun at your face.

After the initial shock, my first thought was "How did he get the guns?" America makes it too easy for anybody to get a gun. I know it's in their constitution, everyone has a right to arm themselves, to protect their family and their property. This is all well and good but if you can get a 9mil along with your milk and cereal at the local Wal-Mart, something's fucked up. You want the freedom to arm and protect yourself, but you have to see that it is at the cost of other people's safety because putting guns in your own hands also means putting guns in the criminals' hands.

My husband says you can't get guns in Malaysia but armed robberies still happen, criminals will try and find guns no matter what you do. Yeah, but at least it's not available for every psychotic on the verge of a mental breakdown, you know what I mean? If the guns are not too readily available, maybe people desperate on revenge will have to find some other recourse to vent their anger, something that won't cost the lives of innocent people, something that won't exact such tragic bloodshed. If the guns are not too readily available, maybe their sordid fantasy of shooting up everyone who made their lives miserable will just remain a fantasy.