Category Archives: Community Problems

I do try not to use this blog as a forum for editorializing but every now and then I am either so annoyed or outraged that I have to expel a few thoughts (which btw…anyone is welcome to add their own voice here). Today I am a combination of sad due to the loss of another young woman and a bit annoyed (maybe mostly at myself) for it to take me almost 10 days to understand that this issue is almost impossible to solve at the moment and knowing why (I have had a seriously limited amount of “pondering” time of late). After I left Amory Park I made the mistake of telling a person who knows me better than I know myself that when standing there I did not have any place in my mind to figure out how such a thing could happen. I immediately got the look that says “you’re so stupid” and was reminded of a similar but at a much lower speed (if what happened on Grant St. was going 100 mph the incident I was involved in was only going 5mph and I had something Corrina et al did not have; someone just a little older and a lot wiser to take me by the hand and pull me away in time) situation in my life. My friend starting asking me absurd questions like “think back; do you remember being afraid? Do you remember why you went there in the first place? Did you ever for one minute think someone would actually shoot you?” It took quite a few days digging through memories long buried before I could answer yes to the first two questions and certainly not to the last. No one EVER thinks someone is really going to shoot and kill them…you just don’t ever believe it.



Which brings me to my point (yeah there’s a point)…I anticipate a large number of people from all city neighborhoods attending the public safety sub-committee meeting tonight. There will be a wide array of ideas battered about on how to solve the problem of gun violence. I am pleased the city council is willing to “throw everything but the kitchen sink” at this problem. Not everything will work but if you try a lot of things some of them will work. However all the good intentions in world will not get us where we want to go is because on the issue of guns…”we” can not agree.

Back 30 or so years ago we started taking lovely little third grade kids and teaching them to “JUST SAY NO” to drugs. Wow! That is miraculous. Parents, educators, legislators’, police all pretty much agreed that drugs aren’t good for you so let’s tell the kids. What made the program even better (I know this because my daughter would come home and teach me) was that it spoke in a very direct manner with facts about medical, physiological, psychological, etc. effects that certain drugs had on the body…it’s not a “preachy” program just honest. I’m not saying this was a panacea but it worked pretty well.

So what took me so long to realize (did I mention my lack of pondering time lately) is why we haven’t been able to apply this simple idea to teaching kids about guns. Why don’t we take our wee little darlings at age 10 and explain what guns look like; different types; how they work; what to do and how to say “no” to someone who offers you a gun and other important things like what the potential for destruction is if we use them in anger; what the potential for destruction if they are used in recreation (Mr. Cheney); and most importantly if you are shot/shoot and killed you will be dead forever. Just the basic information for a child to use in evaluating guns as a part of their life.

So I go to the meeting in hopes there will be enough good ideas to save some children…but the thing that would save many more is no where in sight because “we-the-people” do not agree about guns; Who can have one? Who can not? Do you really need a permit? What about my rights? According to a BBC article “The United States has the largest number of guns in private hands of any country in the world with 60 million people owning a combined arsenal of over 200 million firearms”. 200 million guns…there are about 310 million Americans at last count. So do the math…I do not foresee anytime soon a youngster telling me about what he learned in “Just Say No” about guns.

Update: Thanks to all of the downtown residents who took the time to attend the meeting tonight (there were a lot of you). I really think you all showed your committment to the neighborhood and to the city. Now let’s see if we can’t find a way to get some more police officers.