Comments
by Scoper...
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW DESENSITIZED
You hear a lot these days about violent
movies, TV shows and video games doing harm to the youth of America through
an ongoing, almost mystical process known as "desensitization." I've long
thought the argument was overblown (after all, as a kid, I played "army"
and "cops and robbers" and "cowboys and Indians, in addition to watching
hundreds of hours of "Gunsmoke," "Hawaii 5-0," "Combat" and probably dozens
of other old shoot-em-ups. And I haven't struck another human being in
anger since I was 10 years old.)
Most people are that way. They get
up in the morning, do their jobs, absorb life's little frustrations, take
care of their families, go back to sleep and do it all over again the next
day. But on this particular day, I'm thinking that, well, maybe there IS
something to the "desensitization" argument. Here's why:
After 21 years as a broadcast news
writer, very little surprises me, almost nothing shocks me and I can't
remember the last time I was "outraged." Wait, yes I can. It was this week.
It would have gone down as just another
armed robbery, what I've come to call a "fill-in-the-blank" story.
"Location was held up at gunpoint
last night by best available description, who made off with an
undetermined amount of cash. There were no injuries; police are investigating.
Sometimes, shots are fired without
injuries. Even more rarely, shots are fired and the store clerk is wounded
or killed. But this tore it. It made me sick. Goddammit. (That last word
was necessary; I'm glad this is on the web.)
What does it take to get me outraged
these days? Read on.
At a little after 10 p.m. on May
22, Mirna Adia Machucha, who had immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador
10 years earlier, had locked up the little convenience store in Charlotte,
North Carolina, which her family had owned for about a year. Her four-year
old daughter, Vanessa, was in tow, and Vanessa's infant sister was in her
mother's arms, when two men came out of the shadows, brandishing guns and
demanding the day's receipts.
Mirna handed over the bag of cash,
but the older baby began crying. "Shut her up, or we'll kill her," the
gunmen said. (This is from an eyewitness who refused to be named for fear
she'd be shot, too.)
Vanessa couldn't stop crying, so
these "big, big men" shot her. The bullet went through the tiny girl's
chest and arm. Because of excellent emergency care, she'll probably pull
through, but you can bet the thickened skin at the entrance and exit wounds
won't be the only scars she'll carry for a lifetime.
"It was an act of pure meanness.
That's it, plain and simple." The words of Sgt. Ken Clark of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
police department, who's seen many more of these awful scenes than I have.
I hope this veteran cop and everyone else are as outraged as I am at this
act of pure evil. "Give them the money," they say. "It's not worth dying
for." They're right, it isn't. But mom gave up the money! These bastards
shot her little girl because she wouldn't stop crying. That's beyond mean.
That's hellish.
Is this an argument for gun control?
No, quite the opposite. I'll guarantee you the suspects (believed to be
Hispanic males in their 20's) are not members of the National Rifle Association.
They're the very people the NRA has been clamoring for years for the government
to prosecute, to put behind bars for a long, long time. There's no way
they bought their guns legally, and please don't talk to me about trigger
locks right now.
Had the government been dedicating
its resources to hunting "people" such as these down like dogs and using
laws already on the books to put them away for decades, maybe little Vanessa
wouldn't be fighting for her life in a hospital bed. Jails are overcrowded,
you say. They are. But who's taking up the cell-space that these sons of
Satan should be occupying into old age? In many cases, it's small-time
marijuana or coke dealers. Of course, we're protecting our children against
them, aren't we?
Which brings up another question.
Would you rather little Vanessa have picked up a joint, or taken a bullet?
I'll bet cash money on something else: these vermin with guns are probably
- at some level - involved in the illegal drug trade. What's it going to
take before honest citizens realize how insane this "war on drugs" really
is? So we can start putting the REAL bad guys away? Who? Let's start with
the ones who shoot 4-year-old girls who cry during an armed robbery.
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