In The Crosshairs Of A Gun

It's Sunday night, getting onto bedtime and I'm just sitting down to write. I want to write about Claire and I braving the gusty winds this afternoon on our ice skates down at the lake. Or how lovely it was to sit and read from The Indian in the Cupboard in front of the fire tonight...Claire did most of the reading, but I read some and Dad did too. Chewy slept at my feet the whole time. 


But all day, out of the corner of my eye, or mind, is the image of a group of Tucson citizens, down at their local Safeway supermarket for a "Congress on Your Corner" event with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords when out of the blue, a young man steps up, points his gun at Ms. Giffords and shoots her at close range in the head. After she fell, he continued to spew bullets into the crowd, shooting 20 people. 


Congresswoman Giffords is in critical condition. Six others are dead, including a young girl who had recently been elected to student council in her school. She wanted to come down to "see democracy at work." 


This recent massacre is so numbing, really, I'm sorry to bring it up, but are you shaking your head too? Doesn't it make you wonder how we've come to this place in our history? Don't you feel like something's gone terribly wrong when Sarah Palin, the darling of the NRA, designs a map depicting the locations of Democratic politicians around the country in the crosshairs of a gun, and that seems normal to people. Doesn't that make you feel really fucking worried?


People were gathering to hear Representative Giffords down at the local supermarket for a peaceful exchange of ideas. 


Just an ordinary day in the USA...