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Jan. 3rd, 2006 01:25 amThe reaction to the shootings in TO is driving me crazy. First of all, we live in a big city. How long did the government and the general population think we'd avoid big city crime? Honestly now!
I of course don't like that it took a little blond girl getting shot to finally get some public attention. How many black people were shot this summer? Can we even name them? And now some blonde princess gets shot and the city stops. It's not a fair thing. Not her fault either, just not a fair part of society.
However I think that now that there's attention being paid to gun related violence in the city it's the wrong sort of attention. Saying that we're going to get "tougher on crime" and make more laws to ban guns does nothing. Did I miss it being legal to walk downtown and shoot at people? Did I miss the fact that the shootings this year have been committed with guns which were lawfully purchased and registered? No? So what was done was already against the law and it didn't stop anyone. So how is making more laws going to solve the problem?
The issue for me is this: no one seems to really want to examine why it is that people are picking up guns and shooting people in the first place. We just classify them as "bad guys" and the people who get shot are the "good guys" and there's no grey area to be had inbetween. I think there's a world of grey area there with nothing is exclusively bad and we should be looking at that. What is it about our society or the particular neighbourhoods that the people who were the shooters are from that made them feel they needed a gun in the first place? No one seems to be thinking about maybe funding more community projects in those areas to keep the younger kids out of trouble so they don't grow up and buy guns.... instead we're thinking of harsher laws to punish people after society fails to help them in the first place.
Also the media's spin on the stories is terrible. When the girl was shot on boxing day they just played it in a "it could have been your kids" paranoia way. My mom started worrying and I haven't been shopping there on boxing day in at least 6 years! It's complete garbage which is broadcast not to give us news but to make us afraid to go outside and then to make our fear push the police into working "harder" or more violently... I mean this is just the start of how big cities in the US end up having black people being afraid of the police because of racial profiling. And no one seems to talk about that, it's okay as long as "they" are stopped.
Absolutely insane.
I of course don't like that it took a little blond girl getting shot to finally get some public attention. How many black people were shot this summer? Can we even name them? And now some blonde princess gets shot and the city stops. It's not a fair thing. Not her fault either, just not a fair part of society.
However I think that now that there's attention being paid to gun related violence in the city it's the wrong sort of attention. Saying that we're going to get "tougher on crime" and make more laws to ban guns does nothing. Did I miss it being legal to walk downtown and shoot at people? Did I miss the fact that the shootings this year have been committed with guns which were lawfully purchased and registered? No? So what was done was already against the law and it didn't stop anyone. So how is making more laws going to solve the problem?
The issue for me is this: no one seems to really want to examine why it is that people are picking up guns and shooting people in the first place. We just classify them as "bad guys" and the people who get shot are the "good guys" and there's no grey area to be had inbetween. I think there's a world of grey area there with nothing is exclusively bad and we should be looking at that. What is it about our society or the particular neighbourhoods that the people who were the shooters are from that made them feel they needed a gun in the first place? No one seems to be thinking about maybe funding more community projects in those areas to keep the younger kids out of trouble so they don't grow up and buy guns.... instead we're thinking of harsher laws to punish people after society fails to help them in the first place.
Also the media's spin on the stories is terrible. When the girl was shot on boxing day they just played it in a "it could have been your kids" paranoia way. My mom started worrying and I haven't been shopping there on boxing day in at least 6 years! It's complete garbage which is broadcast not to give us news but to make us afraid to go outside and then to make our fear push the police into working "harder" or more violently... I mean this is just the start of how big cities in the US end up having black people being afraid of the police because of racial profiling. And no one seems to talk about that, it's okay as long as "they" are stopped.
Absolutely insane.
