I Can't Bear Arms

The sign stapled to the telephone pole in front of my house said:
"Dear People with guns,
Please stop shooting people. It scares my family & makes us sad.
Sincerely,
An Oakland Citizen"
It was printed on what appeared to be loose leaf notebook paper, and the font gave the impression of a very big typewriter. I noticed that they had been stuck to a number of other poles up and down our street, so it wasn't directed simply at my neighborhood. The bottom of the page told me who was responsible: Challenges of Champions, a local arts group that focus on the effects of homicide on Oakland's residents. It made me think of the three murders that have occurred in the past year within a quarter mile of my house. It made me sad.
When I opened up the local news page on my computer, the headline that caught my attention immediately was "Indiscriminate gunfire on the rise in Richmond." I don't live in Richmond. It's just up the road from Oakland. Ten people were killed in July up in Richmond. Many of them were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm guessing that anytime or anyplace that puts you in front of a bullet is the wrong place at the wrong time. It makes me sad.
Chris Rock once said, "Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost five thousand dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, we wouldn't have any innocent bystanders." And I still feel sad.