Misplaced Priorities

No arrests in weekend shootings that left two dead in Boston

As the makeshift memorial to the dead 18-year-old grew into a shrine, her mother remained in her Dorchester apartment, surrounded by friends and relatives who combed her hair and listened to her cry.
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The shooting and a second about an hour later on Edson Street in Dorchester that left a 21-year-old dead and three others injured, punctured a relatively quiet summer.

Both cases were tragedies, in that someone died needlessly over trivial bickering. The first case appears to have been someone paying the ultimate price for running their mouth; the second simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one should die that young for being a loudmouth; attending a party shouldn't be a death sentence. There is, however, a lot to be said for being aware of one's surroundings, not being out after midnight, and keeping your piehole shut when in doubt...

Here's what really bothers me. This is the statement from the spokesperson for the Boston Police Department:

“Some of these types of homicides are difficult to prevent, quite frankly,’’ said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department. “That said, officers are out there. They’re working hard and taking firearms off the street, as well as the people who use them.’’

Got that? They're working to take those evil guns off the street, and, oh, maybe the people responsible. The miscreants out there shooting people over stupid shit like being asked to leave a party are an afterthought; the main goal is to get those evil inanimate objects.

As long as we treat this as a gun problem and not a criminal problem, we will never get to the bottom of this.

We can wail and gnash our teeth all day long; we can hold vigils and midnight walks and "take back the night" events until the cows come home; we can rail and lobby for newer and tougher gun control laws until we are blue in the face. The simple fact is that unless and until we start locking these bastards up, make them serve their time, not let them out to go to the county fair, and just overall make the damn justice system work for a change, no gun law ever imagined will fix this. We can't force people to start valuing life more; all we can do is bring down the hammer of righteous justice when they break our rules and commit the most intimate of heinous crimes.

Unless and until we start going after the criminal, rather than the tool used, we will only perpetuate the cycle of violence. End of story.

That is all.