Everytime I think of the two girls who have been shot, one 11 years of age, the other 12, I am left staggered and bewildered by it all. At the same time, honestly, I'm furious to think that the situations faced by these and other children can be boiled down to a purely law enforcement/gang/violence epidemic. There are plenty of moving parts that lead up to what happened over the weekend.
For starters, I hope people come to the realization that these are two school children who are simply going about daily lives. It doesn't matter if they are black, white or of another complexion. They are the children of our city, state and nation. So we had better realize this right up front and demonstrate some empathy for the over 30,000 people who die each year from firearms.
By the way, I just noticed that U.S. House of Representatives - yesterday - passed a bill making it much easier for those who are mentally ill to get their hands on firearms. Okay, I digress. Well, may not.
And while it is true law enforcement and gang violence has to be dealt with by law enforcement agencies, it's also true that it has to be addressed at another level...the level of prevention. And these preventive measures have everything to do with mitigating against the needless shooting of two innocent school students.
I'll take a deeper dive into these measures in the coming days.
Dick
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