Enough Shootings

Thursday February 14th, 2008 - Lake Villa, IL

Today started out very well and I was in a groove until I heard about a shooting over at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. I know that campus because many years ago I had the extreme hots for a girl who was a student there. She was amazing and that school is a hotbed for hot chicks. Cindy Crawford went there. ‘Nuff said. It’s a young man’s dream.

I was at Jim McHugh’s house when we heard the news. Jim’s wife called as we were at his computer making up business cards. We turned on the TV and it was the same scene it always is. Some reporter has sketchy details and the police chief isn’t saying anything and the University faculty are all hush hush and everyone is wandering around in a blind funk.

I guess I’d be blind and funky too but why does this kind of scene keep happening? Last week it was the Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park. Five innocent victims got killed just for shopping for some clothes. Last week in Milwaukee eleven people got shot in a couple of hours. Last month it was the nut bag in Omaha who snapped and flipped out at the mall.

Being someone who has dealt with depression and anger and all kinds of ugliness for an entire lifetime I have to say this angers me even more. Everyone has THOUGHT about an uncontrolled shooting spree at one time or another but now people are starting to DO it in record numbers. Something’s wrong somewhere and I don’t know how to make it stop.

I’m not a stranger to hopelessness. I can honestly say I’ve been to the point of wanting a way out of my pain and was ready to take my own life. These people are obviously not in a strong mental space but it’s inexcusable to me when someone randomly opens fire on a group of people who have nothing to do with their pain. Why waste all of those bullets on people who are trying to live a good life? There are SO many others who really deserve it.

How about passing out a list of registered sex offenders and child molesters? Have at it. Gang bangers who habitually traffic drugs and steal and drain the police force manpower and spend our tax dollars needlessly would all make good targets. Plus, they have some of their own weapons so at least it would be a fair fight. Killing one of them would be sport.

Shooting innocent college students or ladies shopping is just not acceptable. If a wacko is in pain and wants to blow his head off I’m all for it. Nobody would have missed me by now if I’d done it when I was that low but at least I wouldn’t have taken someone’s father or sister or parent or child. I would have had the common courtesy to deal with it myself.

I’m getting harder and crankier in my old age and my patience is wearing thin. It’s not a gun control issue it’s a SELF control issue. Who the hell is spreading the word that going on a shooting spree is the way to solve someone’s deep seeded mental tweaks? STOP it.

There were a lot of positives today. I got a lot of work done and got called for two gigs this week when I thought I was off. But I can’t help feeling sad for the victims in DeKalb.
And Tinley Park. And Omaha. The shooters are dead but their evil lives on. Why is that?