We lived in Tucson for a bunch of years and today's terrible tragedy has really had an impact on both Arlen and me. Six people dead. Rep. Gifford in critical condition. Some dumb fuck with a gun making his point. A little 9-year old girl dead. The shooter, 22 years old. The parallels passed in and out of my mind as I did my long run today (see next post for that). Our little guy turned 9 in November. Here is a 9-year old "cohort" of his...same town...parents just took her to meet the Congresswoman...to see how the government works...and they sit at home tonight without their 9-year old. Without their little girl. 9 years in the can. All for what? For some dumb fuck with a gun to make his point. The other 5 who died? One was Judge Roll (didn't know him). The other 4? Don't know who they are yet. Tucson is a big small town. Degrees-of-separation ensure someone I know will know. And will be terribly, deeply, sad tonight. Sad? Seems like an insincere word when something so random happens. My middle kid is 22. The dumb fuck with his gun is apparently 22. My kid graduated in 2006 from Foothills High School. The murderer graduated from Mountain View High School in 2006. Between then and now, I wonder what happened to this kid. His life is effectively over. Six others lives are definitively over. He made his point. And those parents of that 9-year old girl, numb, disbelieving, unable to think or speak, no longer have that little girl. They just wanted to show the little girl how the government worked (according to quotes in the Az. Daily Star)...she just wanted to meet the Congresswoman...a celebrity.
So what of the killer? The dumb fuck with a gun who made his point. Who knows what snakes this kid has in his head. But I do know he murdered 6 people. Including that 9-year old girl. Who wanted to know more about the government. In the 2010 election, Sarah Palin identified Gifford's district with a gun scope target. She advocated, metaphorically, "taking out" Gifford. She noted that Gifford's opponent, if elected, would be a fully loaded weapon (or something to that effect). In Nevada, Sharon Angle talked about "2nd Amendment remedies." Ms. Angle, WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU? Now I'm not at all suggesting the murderer did what he did because of what scumbags Palin and Angle said; rather, I'm wondering how we have gotten to this point? And that little girl wanted to learn how government works.
Kris and I were especially upset because we used to be Tucsonans, too. My sister still lives there. She met Giffords a few weeks ago, when the congresswoman visited a food bank where my sister volunteers. My sister and I talked about how the gunman could've gone after her then. Anyhow, I hear you, my friend.
ReplyDelete