Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-manner-of-speaking/5009162/
Number of handgun murders committed annually:United Kingdom, 7
Canada, 8
Australia, 13
Sweden, 19
Israel, 25
Switzerland, 53
United States, 8,915
"US Leads in Handgun Murders," USA Today, June 5, 1992.
Though violence erupts around us, we are somehow able to distance ourselves from it. We fold our newspapers with disgust and recycle the stories. We flip the channels searching for something mindless to make our escape. We comfort ourselves that this is not Bosnia, that we do not work in the World Trade Center, that it didn't shouldn't wouldn't couldn't happen to our children. But then sometimes something happens - all escape routes are sealed - violence has broken the barriers. It has become personal.
Jason sat next to my son, Aaron, in the junior high school jazz band. One February morning Jason committed suicide outside the band room with an antique pistol and a homemade bullet. He died at 6:30 AM; at 6:32 Aaron arrived at school with his saxophone.
Jeff, my cousin, was leaving Los Angeles to start a new business in Quilcene, Washington. The night his friends gave him a farewell party, one of those friends followed him back to his room, stole his life savings, and ...