The only thing we know, officially, about Sunday night’s shooting in the 600 block of Chaparral Court is that there are two dead and two wounded. That crime is probably going to cost the public a million dollars before it’s over; there will be the hospital bills and if anyone is charged and convicted, the cost of the trial and decades of incarceration. If this were the only case we could afford it, but it’s happening everywhere all the time.
I know I should be lamenting the death of two young men, but I don’t know them or enough about what happened to determine if I should be sympathetic or critical. I’m not in a position to separate the good from the bad; however, even bad people often have good people who love them, so there will likely be extended pain. The innocent group has my sympathy – especially the grieving Moms who will not forget Mother’s Day, 2013.
The incident had several hallmarks of a gang-related crime, but that does not mean it was. Many times idiot gang members just drive in, get the wrong address and shoot the wrong people. Sometimes they just see an offending color on a baseball cap and open up on an innocent bystander. At other times, they are trying to “earn their bones” by killing someone; anyone will do.
This is fodder for both sides of the gun debate. The anti-gun folks will say that this is what so many guns bring you, the ability to kill in droves. The pro-gun folks will say that since the criminal element is awash with guns they won’t surrender and don’t care much how they use them, as honest people must have a way to protect themselves and their loved ones. They are both right.
One thing is certain – there is too much violent criminal activity in the United States. The gun debate goes on and on in the media and political discourse because it brings in real money and stirs activism on both sides, but almost no one wants to talk about the people pulling the trigger. Who did it and why? I can only hazard a guess.
It seems unlikely that it was an economic crime; there are no reports of stolen goods. However, a “business dispute” – typically over drugs – cannot be ruled out. The possibility of a maniac seems remote; they usually either kill themselves or hang around waiting to be killed or caught. It could be revenge. Revenge is always on the plate with young adults, they like to talk about how tough they are, but they are so insecure that every slight, real or imagined, needs to be paid back with death. This holds true for the entire spectrum from street gangs to the social malcontents at Columbine.
In most gang-related cases, the seeds of destruction were planted long ago when those involved were just turning into teenagers. That is also our best chance to stop it; try to keep them out of the gang for one year and then another and eventually they are likely to stay away from that culture.
The cold-blooded might believe that the best solution is to allow the violent to kill each other off, but there are two problems with that philosophy. The first is that eventually an innocent party will be caught in the crossfire. Second, it still costs a million dollars an incident to clean up the mess over the long term. If you won’t fight against gangs for social stability, do it for economic reasons. We simply can’t afford them.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
