A tragedy in Michigan

It's hard to know where to begin with the deaths of two young men in Kalamazoo, Michigan this weekend.

According to several news reports, Marsavious Frazier, Daquarion Hunter and at least one more youth were handling a firearm.  One of the two named youths accidentally fired a shot, which killed the other;  whereupon, distraught, the shooter turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.  The third youth was a witness, who held the dying youngsters in his arms and later informed police what had happened.  I daresay he's going to need some serious counseling intervention.

How I wish these kids had had the sense not to fool around with a gun they didn't know how to handle!  That's the root cause of this tragedy.  The NRA's Eddie Eagle program for children teaches them the right approach to dealing with a firearm:  stop, don't touch, leave the area, tell an adult.  Unfortunately, these youngsters don't appear to have had the benefit of such training when they were younger.  Like most teenagers, they probably thought it was 'cool' to fiddle with a gun.  There's no indication that they were anything but good citizens;  no reports of gang involvement, drug use, or anything else negative at all.  Just idle playing around . . . and now two promising lives have been snuffed out, and two families devastated.

If you, like me, are of a spiritual and/or religious inclination, please pray for all the young men involved, alive and dead, and for their families.  This will be very hard for the survivors to live with, particularly the young man who witnessed everything.  It's the kind of thing that shatters lives for years - possibly even generations - to come.  It's also going to be used as fuel for their arguments by those opposed to the Second Amendment and private firearms ownership.  Such pointless tragedies are grist to their mill, and the rest of us will now have to work that much harder to counter them.

Peter