Yikes Rachel! That is very sad. Unfortunately, our community is going crazy over what’s happened here too…have you heard about the crazy monster of a person who threw his 4 babies off the Dauphin Island bridge? Yeah…I can’t believe I live so close to a maniac like that. Its got us all a little more than freaked out.

I didn’t know you had a blog here. I was searching for something on google on your blog popped up. I’ll have to add it to my favorites. How are you doing?

Oh, Rachel. I’m so sorry to read about this. Years ago my ex’s coworker was with his family at a gas station. Their car was hit by at least one bullet shot by a young man aiming at someone in the vicinity. The stray bullet grazed the coworker’s head and killed his 18 month old in the backseat.

I don’t know what’s happening. I rarely even watch the news now because so much saddens me. Maybe that’s part of the problem, but I feel almost like it’s a bit of self-preservation of my own or else I’ll make my kids crazy.

I’ll keep your neighborhood and that boy’s family in my thoughts and prayers.

(And I’m too afraid to check out the other links.)

This is amazingly common, and on average 75 people, (mostly younger folks), die from gun violence EVERY DAY in this country. 100’s more are injured and afflicted for life with the wounds they suffer at the hands of our modern day gun slingers. It’s just a shameful crime that this is not more widely known or cared about. We’ve got a gun culture in this country like no other on earth. We are by far the most violent western industrialized nation in the world. And seemingly there’s little we can do to stop it. But I truly believe that it overhangs our society like a cruel black miasma in all too many communities. Many youngsters don’t believe they’ll ever live to adulthood, so this creates a cascade effect of social disorder almost from birth. Want to know why Johnny can’t read? He’s ducking bullets and gangs constantly in his ‘hood. He dare not take a trip to the library, or on certain bus routes, or be found out on the streets after dark. It’s the constant thereat to physical safety & security that gives the lie to all our much touted ‘freedoms’, and it’s something these kids feel in their guts ever day they go out into the wider world. A pervasive fear of not only ‘the unknown’ or untried, but of any sort of novelty, movement or innovation as this ‘might get them in trouble’ with someone for something.

Me, I think that any kid found with a gun, or committing a crime with one needs extra punishment for a start. I recognize that this has been tried, but we also need to enforce the laws that have middle men selling the guns to these kids too. It’s just got to stop. It’s destroyed too many lives and too many communities.

Cheers, ‘VJ’

Poor boy ! It is awful !
I do not think it happens just in your country. Violence is growing all around us. Last night on TV, I watched a report showing how what we call “free violence” was growing even in my own country. Kids are going more and more violent at school, too…