Gun violence, and Peter....
Feb. 28th, 2018 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osodecanelaOne of the things I’ve heard recently from the TV talking heads is one of the potential drivers of the current government gun control movement is the number of people who know someone who’s been affected by it. Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS had some 3000 students enrolled. How many people know a student there?
Hell, I’m almost 3000 miles away and I personally know two people who graduated from there. Did you know the school librarians from Sandy Hook Elementary and Marjory Stoneman Douglas are old friends who used to work together? Both were at their schools when the shooting happened. Both shepherded their students into closets to hide them.
I’ve been touched by gun violence. Not a mass shooting; Peter died in a random shooting, where he was the only victim. We met one another when I was training in SF. Peter went on to earn his Ph.D. in clinical psychology and something thereafter moved cross country to do research at the NIH. One night, getting out of his car, near his home in Baltimore Peter was struck down by gunfire. He died on the scene.
I cannot say we were close. Others who I know were. I did have a strong respect for him and the important work he was doing. His death was so unnecessary, so wasteful. Tragic. I often cry when I think about it.
How many more Peters will there have to be before we do something meaningful to stop this?
Hell, I’m almost 3000 miles away and I personally know two people who graduated from there. Did you know the school librarians from Sandy Hook Elementary and Marjory Stoneman Douglas are old friends who used to work together? Both were at their schools when the shooting happened. Both shepherded their students into closets to hide them.
I’ve been touched by gun violence. Not a mass shooting; Peter died in a random shooting, where he was the only victim. We met one another when I was training in SF. Peter went on to earn his Ph.D. in clinical psychology and something thereafter moved cross country to do research at the NIH. One night, getting out of his car, near his home in Baltimore Peter was struck down by gunfire. He died on the scene.
I cannot say we were close. Others who I know were. I did have a strong respect for him and the important work he was doing. His death was so unnecessary, so wasteful. Tragic. I often cry when I think about it.
How many more Peters will there have to be before we do something meaningful to stop this?
no subject
Date: 2018-03-03 05:32 pm (UTC)I have not known someone shot to death; however, in 1994 while on tour with "Evita" in Baltimore, I was robbed at gunpoint. The threat of violence stayed with me for years. Eleven years later, I was back in Baltimore with a different tour of "Evita". I can't say I enjoyed being back there. I worry all the time for a friend who lives in Baltimore and works at Johns Hopkins.