In the hours after a dozen or so gunshots ran out in the middle of the night in my cozy neighborhood on the outskirts of Sacramento, more lives than the two taken by gunfire were lost.
I was born and raised just outside of Detroit, a town that has struggled against a decades-old “Murder Capital Of The World” moniker.
I live a ways away from the maligned “South Sac” that many of my neighbors decry. It’s another area with a reputation for being riddled with drugs and crime.
I’m dozens of miles away from Stockton and Modesto, the former being a more current national “Murder Capital,” and the latter being jokingly referred to as “Methdesto” by some, due to its reputation for rampant drugs.
Until earlier this week, typical problems in my neighborhood of 11 years had been a neighbor’s incessantly barking dogs, other neighbors’ loud backyard music during Saturday afternoon barbecues, and a sorority house that gets a little rowdy on Saturday nights toward the end of each semester.
So a couple of mornings ago, I wasn’t ready for the sight of yellow caution tape that blocked the path of my early morning constitutionals of the last decade. I used to walk both dogs down that street, until it dead ends at a park that’s adjacent to a vibrant elementary school. My former four legged walking buddies are gone now, but my walking habit persists. It’s great for my cardiovascular and behavioral health.
I later learned that the caution tape blocked access to a home in which two people died, and two others critically injured, during a very early morning shoot out. A neighbor across the street’s doorbell video captured the peal of the dozen or so gunshots that were fired just after 1am, and the specter of the alleged shooter as he or she cowardly ran away.
Hours later, as the rising sun revealed the exterior of the crime scene, the whole neighborhood was abuzz. We all tried to learn the details of what happened, understand the whys of what happened, and explain to our kids the how-could-it-haves of what happened.
I was a little dazed, frankly, as I shuffled past that corner that morning, barely a five minute stroll from my home, and meandered into the path of an eager but friendly reporter with our local NBC affiliate. I shared my thoughts, on camera, and a part of that interview even made it onto the evening news that evening. She used my comment about my being “disturbed” that something like that could happen so close to an elementary school.
She didn’t use the quote I wanted her to use. Upon being asked if I had anything further to say, I said “We have to start treating each other better, and stop shooting each other.” I choked up as I said it.
Some of us look to communities like South Sac or Stockton as the sites of gun violence, but when we see and hear it just down the street from our own homes, the problem seems, somehow, more salient.
I know it sounds simplistic. And I certainly am not in the mood for a debate about the Second Amendment.
On second thought, I am.
Our country’s forefathers couldn’t have envisioned the epidemic of gun violence plagued cities all over the country, and we need to repeal that amendment or do something else to get guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
But that said, 48 hours later, I still think it just might work.
Instead of fixating on the Second Amendment, let’s give the Golden Rule another shot. If everyone did unto others the way they want others to do unto themselves, two people who used to live in my neighborhood wouldn’t be dead today, with two others fighting for their lives in a nearby hospital.
If we loved our neighbors as we love ourselves, the kids who go to that elementary school just down the street wouldn’t have to worry during today’s recess, and whether someone else was going to get gunned down practically in their own back yard.
We’ve got to do better. Those kids at that school, and kids of all ages, deserve it.
Today, like I said, the caution tape is gone, along with the members of law enforcement and the eager beaver reporters. But the scars remain, along with the ghosts that remind those of us just walking by of the way life used to be.
It’s been a great 11 years, but today, for the first time since I bought a home in this neighborhood, I was a little tentative just walking down that street, past that house, to that park, between drops of rain, during my morning constitutional.
Let’s stop shooting each other. The lives lost, and impacted, often extend far beyond the scene of the crime.
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