I don't like guns

I'm sad today. Today's shootings bring back memories that are painful and frightening for me.

When I was a teenager I knew someone for a short time who had a schoolgirl crush on Brenda Spencer's father. That was weird. Creepy and weird. I still remember her face, but not her name. Teenagers are weird, ok? I'm sure she got over that crush. I dunno, I never saw her again.

I lived pretty close to the border when the McDonald's massacre happened.

A few years later a friend blew half her head off with a .357 magnum. I don't know if I'll ever get over that one, she asked me to come pick her up that day. I told her no because I didn't trust myself to drive. I was exhausted from working the night shift and taking care of my daughter during the day. My ex had recently threatened to "take me out." I didn't know whether he had guns at that time or not. I knew that he had had them years before he met me.

Did you know that more people commit suicide (in the US) with guns than are killed by someone else with guns?

None of these experiences were as painful as the day my daughter came home from school and told me that she was afraid to go to school. They had locked down her school because some kid was playing in a nearby canyon with a bee-bee gun. I guess the school administrators were skittish because of the Santana High shootings.

Lastly, my friend's son is living in another state because his friend was killed in a stupid gang shooting. The ones who did it are in jail, but their homies will find him if he comes back. He wasn't even in a gang. My friend misses her son. I miss her son.

All the pain and fear I have felt is NOTHING like the people experience in Iraq on a daily basis. There are fewer people in Iraq than there are in my state . Does anyone else wonder what it would be like if 60 people a day died because of firearms in California?

I do.

I am sorry for the people who lost loved ones today in Virginia.

I am sorry for the people who lose loved ones every day in Baghdad .

Update 12:02 PM 4/17/2007 According to an IANSA report published in 2006, gun-related incidents result in 300,000 fatalities and one million injuries worldwide every year. Many of those guns come from the U.S.

Mexican authorities reported that 80 percent of guns in the country came from the U.S., 50 percent of handguns seized by Canada's gun crime task force were also smuggled across the U.S. border and 30 percent of guns recovered by Japanese authorities originated in the U.S., the IANSA found.