Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Shots Shots ShotsShotsShotsShots (Everybody!)

I heard someone die on Sunday. My mom and I were in the living room of her condo on the south side watching The Artist (which I had never seen and enjoyed, A-) when we heard gunshots.

"Hmm." I said.
"Fireworks?" She asked. We kept watching the black and white actors.Then sirens a bit later. Out the window eight cop cars. We peered out but nothing was happening presently.

Anyway, in the morning the front desk guy explained it was the head of one group and his brother. They were both shot by someone yet to be caught. We say "group" here because no one likes to live in gangland (although if you live in Chicago, you do).

I had done sprints at the exact spot of killing that morning and did them again Monday. And yesterday. People power walk and bike on by. There's clover and Alice Sr and I even jumped in Lake Michigan. From the still glassy water I could see the white brick where it went down.

I don't feel particularly unsafe as a non-member of any groups. But the couple blocks from the bus to the door at midnight I don't prefer. There's just a bed of fear we all have to lie in. And that makes me really mad, actually.

No guns. No guns. No guns please. I cannot die from a stray knife wound. But bullets fly. And having my own would not save me.

Maybe guns will always exist, but come on, make them harder to buy. Scarier to own. More expensive. Tax the heck out of them. We don't need them. And generation by generation we can sort some of these issues out. Slavery was really important to us at one point, but when it was time for that to end, if was time for that to end. Don't be the jerk who was like, "We've already built our whole culture around having slaves! Whoopsy can't change it now!"

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