Is it a Gun Problem? Or a People Problem?

So I just had someone tell me that my view on gun control would change if someone I knew had been the victim of gun violence. So let's discuss that. Because what the person doesn't know is that I carry a gun because people I love have been the victims of gun crime. 

I want to talk about one specific friend. His name is Jamal. I met Jamal when I was 14 years old, through a mutual friend. We never went to school together until college, but we made it through our teen years together. He used to come over to my house all the time to play guitar, and he was very gifted on the instrument. Jamal was a very close friend. 

The last time I ever saw Jamal is now permanently burned into my mind. I was graduating from college and there was a procession through our small campus to the area where graduation was being held. We walked through a crowd of friends and family, and as I was passing one particular spot, a hand reached out and pulled me out of line. It was Jamal. He had come to campus to watch me graduate, and wanted to take a moment to introduce me to his girlfriend, because with all the craziness - and the fact that I had moved out of state and had only returned for graduation - he wasn't sure he'd get a chance for us to meet again. I could only spend a moment and then had to run to catch up. I didn't realize I'd never see Jamal again. 

Six months later, Jamal stepped off a bus a block away from his home. It was 10:00 at night and he was returning from work. It was a major road in the city with a lot of apartments and heavy foot traffic at all hours of the day and night. He was in front of a blindingly lit car lot. Out of nowhere, a guy walked up to him and put a 22 LR right in the side of his neck. As Jamal lay on the ground, the guy emptied his pockets and made off with $2. 

An hour prior to this, this same man had robbed a woman and her small child in a fast food restaurant. Jamal was his second victim of the night. He wasn't the guy's last victim of the night, though. He was eventually caught. The gun was stolen. He was charged and convicted on a bunch of charges, including murder.

The story doesn't end there. Yes, I blame the person who shot Jamal. But I want to discuss this a little further. 

Go back to the description of the area. It was a heavily traveled, heavily lit area. Cars passing, buses passing, Lots and lots of apartments. He was right at the bus stop when this happened. 

Now, let's discuss the aftermath. Jamal was discovered at 7:30 the next morning by a sales person from the car lot he was in front of. The guy called 911, but Jamal was obviously dead at this point. An autopsy was performed and it was stated that it took several hours for him to bleed out. 

Put the last two paragraphs together in your mind for a moment and think about it. 

1. Someone heard the shot. They had to. 
2. People walked by. People drove by. There's a chance people getting off the bus stepped over him. People may have stood near him waiting to catch the bus. 
3. Someone in one of those apartments most likely saw him lying there in his own blood. 
4. The people on the bus he'd just gotten off most likely saw at least some of the robbery. They most likely heard the shot and saw Jamal fall to the ground. 

No one called 911 until 7:30 the next morning. Jamal laid on that sidewalk for 9.5 hours. He was alive for a good deal of them, I don't know how many, but the autopsy said "several." 

So yes, I blame the guy with the stolen gun who shot my friend. But I also blame all of those people. I won't lie, it's been a long time. It's been about 15 years since the world lost Jamal. And I am still angry. If just one of those people had bothered to call 911, Jamal might still be alive today! His parents wouldn't have lost their only child. His then fiance wouldn't have lost the love of her life. He most likely would have been doing something amazing with his life. He might have a kid or two by now. He would have had some work to do in the hospital and would have a scar to remind him daily of that night. But he would have been alive!

If just one person valued his life. As a human being. As someone they saw get shot, or watched slowly bleed to death. If just one person had gone to a pay phone right there on the corner and had dialed 911 to give an anonymous report that someone had been shot, Jamal would have been the victim of an armed robbery instead of the victim of a murder. 

We say all the time that criminals won't obey laws and won't stop being criminals because guns have been outlawed. If someone wants to kill, they'll find a way. Bombs, knives, cars, whatever they have to use. 

But beyond all of that, every time there is a shooting, I hear a lot about what punishments should be given out to all of us who didn't do it, what rights we are expected to give up. I never hear anyone talk about fixing the gang problem, how exactly we should tackle the mental health issue we keep bringing up, root causes, etc. All we hear about is guns guns guns. Let's arm teachers. Let's write more laws. Let's put up metal detectors in schools. Let's repeal the second amendment. Let's pull some heartstrings by thrusting kids into the middle of a political debate they know nothing about and probably can't handle. Let's blame the NRA. Let's blame Hollywood. Let's blame the president. Let's blame video games. 

At what point do we sit back and say, "How about we discuss how we treat each other?" 

Look, the issue is multi-faceted. There isn't one fix all. Nothing done is going to please everyone. Everyone is always going to fight. But one thing we can work on is how do we instill the proper treatment of each other into our kids? How do we instill that value into ourselves? 

Are you bullying your classmates? Are you ignoring the people around you? Would you call 911 if you saw a man bleeding to death in the street?

How did you treat the last homeless person you passed? Did you feel anything? Whether you gave him anything or not, did you feel something inside that couldn't be described as disdain? Did you realize he was a person just like you? Did you feel bad for him or did you assume he was a drunk or a drug addict with no evidence and didn't deserve your pity? 

How did you treat the last waiter or delivery person you had contact with? Did you leave a tip? Did you get angry because of something that they had no control over? Did you give them a dirty look? Did you ask for 100 different things 100 different times instead of all at once so they could do one trip instead of 100? Did you berate or laugh at them? Did you assume they were uneducated? 

​How about the other people driving around you on the road? Did you flip someone off for doing the speed limit? Did you get angry because you wanted to drive faster and they didn't? Did you over dramatically pass someone and get too close when cutting in front of them? Did you tailgate someone to make them drive faster? Did you cut them off? Did to slow to a crawl even though it wasn't necessary to oggle a wreck on the road even though you've seen a hundred wrecks just like it before? Did you laugh at someone who got pulled over? 

I'm not saying you have to act in a manner that would have you up for sainthood. But at some point we need to sit back and realize that we don't treat our fellow human beings as fellow human beings. We treat people as though they are beneath us. We don't see the people driving those cars. We don't understand that the waiter isn't just a waiter, that he has a lot of other aspects of existence that make him up, and his reason for living isn't to bring you junk food. We don't see a homeless person as the same as us, they're an expendable nuisance instead of a Veteran with PTSD who needs help, not hate. We see people in trouble and assume someone else will do something. 

Even these mass shootings have no humanity. People are dying. The shooting isn't even over yet before the political fights begin, and no one stops to think about the kids who survived and what that several minutes is going to do to the rest of their lives. We don't think about that frantic feeling of every single parent of every single child within 50 miles of that scene. We don't think about how the teachers feel because they couldn't prevent a child from being killed even if they prevented another 30 from being killed. We spend a moment to point out the heroes, but don't think about how horrible they feel that they couldn't save everyone. The media spends weeks on end giving us every detail about the life of the shooter without realizing that the next shooter is taking notes and worshiping this person as a hero, using these details to form his own plan and outdo him because it's a game to him. 

We don't give any value to the lives around us of people we don't personally know. Hell, sometimes we don't value the lives of people we do know. 

So yes, I carry a gun. I will always carry a gun. Because I know people don't value my life. I know my life could be cut short for the $2 in my pocket or because someone wants my car or my cell phone. Someone reading this right now disagrees with me and thinks I should die because I am pro-gun. Someone is reading this right now and hoping for my death so I can't vote in the midterms. Or because I voted for Trump. Or because of the color of my skin. I carry a gun because I have, in fact, looked down the barrel of someone's gun. I have been robbed. I have been assaulted. I have had someone try to stab me for my wallet. I have had someone road rage at me and try to get into my car. And the only person who truly values my life is me. I carry a gun because I want to survive. I don't want to hope someone calls 911 for me before I die. I don't want to stand helpless as I watch someone slaughter someone I love for nothing. I wish Jamal had had a gun. So I carry a gun. 

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