Strays

 The bluest skies I've ever seen are in Seattle. 

Just not today. 

Or for the foreseeable future. 

Last Sunday night, while the community gathered around the iconic Space Needle in the Emerald City, shots rang out. The Bite of Seattle festival ended abruptly as two young men fired guns, nominally at each other, while thousands of attendees looked on in horror. 

As quickly as this tragedy began, it was over. Bodies lay on the ground as the crowd fled the scene. Three people ranging in age from nineteen to fifty-six years old were dead. Four more, including a toddler, were injured. Police on the scene took one of the shooters into custody while another fled. Authorities provides some good news: none of the officers on at the site fired their weapons. Who knows how many more injuries and fatalities might have resulted in more shots being fired?

Because this is the bottom line: You have to have a little something wrong in your head to imagine that you might show up at a large community gathering and "settle things" with a gun. Why would anyone choose to carry a loaded gun into a throng of people who came together to enjoy the flavors of their city? It is the kind of thing that harkens back to our wild west heritage, when gunslingers would roll into town in time for the big square dance, looking for the guy who done them wrong. 

To kill them. 

In the stories we tell and make into movies, the gunslingers are generally really good shots, and they tend to shoot up the scenery rather than innocent bystanders when they miss. The fact that both of the assailants in Seattle managed to shoot everyone but each other speaks volumes about just how ridiculous this scenario turns out in real life. Revenge is not exacted out of the death of innocent victims. 

The Bite of Seattle Festival may go on next year. With increased security and measures to keep this kind of tragedy from occurring again. But it's already too late. Like the Garlic Festival in Gilroy. Or the Pride Festival in Berlin. Or any of the hundreds of other senseless killings that take place every day. 

Whether its the guns or the people that are doing the killing, one thing remains true: If there were no guns, three people would still be alive in Seattle.