When will the killing stop

Killing is becoming institutionalized in our country. Violence is an accepted way of life in many areas of our country. Guns are predominant on our streets and show no sign of stopping. The shootings are commonplace and are so numerous, they have taken to accounting the number of shootings rather than reporting on each individual shooting on our local news.

I am not sure what we are doing in the City of St. Louis here. We have had a appearance of a surge in violence. One shooting killed a mayor and another killed a former police chief who worked as a investigator for the state. Both of these were people of color. We are killing the leaders who are trying to stop this.

The former police chief was a friend of a friend of mine at work. I was there when he found out his childhood friend had passed. It was a senseless killing by an idiot who lost money gambling and tried to rob an armed man. He killed his attacker as well, and shot the assailants friend, so all will pay. One man, who was a decent and honorable man who did what was best for the neighborhood. Another, well, he was "well known" to law enforcement paid with his life, and his friend will be incarcerated for his participation in this incident.

When will the killing stop? When will the attitude change? As I type this, I watch the local news about how bad the schools are. Our priorities are so messed up about what things are going on. We need more money for the items on our budget that should be our priorities.

The next time some sports team owner asks for money to fix up a stadium I have to ask him where that money is going to come from. I want him to understand that to pay these athletes to throw a ball around and provide a premium facility for them to do it, we are taking money from the kids, our future, to give them what they want. Do we need this elective activity? We have to ask ourselves what the priorities are. I live with this each and every day.

I see people lining up for shoes at stores whenever there is a new release. Shoes that cost $125 made by people in third world countries making fifty or 74 cents an hour while there are people here unemployed.

Where is the outrage? In what is happening here, we are all guilty because we let it happen. It isn't in our neighborhood, so we ignore it. It does touch it through our TV screens every day. In the past 24 hours in St. Louis there was 9 shootings, with one hitting the car sitting in front of a state representatives office. (The State Rep was not targeted, but was the result of two men arguing on the parking lot of his office). One shooting in the downtown area hit an office building where workers were forced to hit the floor terrified.

In this environment, our Supreme Court has, in its infinite wisdom, decided that we all need to arm ourselves to kill and kill and kill again. They have limited the ability for local municipalities to control guns on the streets. What happens next is anyone's guess. What happens next is up to us to vote into office people who want peace on our streets and changing the local attitudes to violence.