I guess this is kind of a daily small thing for you americans but.....

[Lemonboy]

Last night when I was watching TV there was a drive-by shooting right outside my bedroom window........


I'm actually quite shaken up about it as I heard it but thaught it was someone popping fireworks and I saw the guys driving away on a scooter, and today I read they had a 9 mm gun .....no-one was injured but the car sustained major damage....


The incident is kind of big news here in Sweden......

 

[Kristie]

ok, drive by shootings aren't really big news, but drive by shootings out side one's window certainly is

I'm glad you're safe

 

[U2Kitten]

How scary I always heard that toy guns were banned in Sweden because the gov't didn't want kids growing up thinking violence was the answer. But I think it's going to happen, in every country in some way, no matter what you do. It's human nature (and another reason I prefer animals)

Where I live there have been recent incidents of people being killed by gunfire as they slept in their own beds by gang members driving or running by shooting at each other. They weren't the targets, they were hit by stray bullets coming through the walls of their homes. One was a 3 year old in a crib. The next time it was an 8 year old boy. The latest one was a young woman. This doesn't even count the people shot all the time in gang fights and drive bys. Most of them are young guys. Don't say ban guns, the kinds of people who do this never buy them legally anyway. They steal them or get them on the black market like drugs. Most of the shooting is about drugs.

If you ever hear it again, don't look out the window, it might put you in more danger. I hope it never happens again. You take care

 

[Liesje]

True, sad but true, drive by shootings and lots of other shootings are everyday in the US and everyday where I grew up. A 14 year old boy shot and killed his younger cousin on my street. Close by, where my mom works, a teenager shot another teenager over $40. When I was about six, my younger brother and I were in a tree along our driveway and a teenager who was a known member of a local gang fired at us and hit me in the knee and my bro in the head. He was shooting some kind of birdshot, but being that we were at close range and my bro was only four or five years old, it left a huge welt on his temple. Good thing it wasn't real bullets *shudder*. My mom called the police and my dad punched one of the guys in the face, but a year later the kid was shot and killed in a gang fight. In my 11 years living there I discovered that the ONLY thing those guys were afraid of were huge dogs. My neighbor friend moved away, but she'd come back with her dad to fix up the house and they had one of those dogs like in Sandlot and it was the only way we could play outside without getting yelled at by those little punks.

 

[hippy]

I live in Miami.

Nuff said, unfortunately.

 

[Kristie]

...I forgot to add something.

I think the shootings people fear the most in my immediate neighborhood is stray bullets from hunters in the woods out back. There's at least one bullet hole in our house.
Still, I think drive by shootings are absolutely despicable... if someone feels they absolutely have to shoot someone, the least they can do is shoot them up close, not spray a whole neighborhood with bullets.
Though I think people bent on being murderers probably don't care much about bystanders...

 

[verte76]

Good grief. There are killings going on in Birmingham all of the time. About a year and a half ago one of those killings was of a security guard in a library parking lot. Needless to say it had every library worker in town absolutely nerve-shot. They assigned regular cops to the libraries after this. It's scary. Some people are holes.

 

[Sue DeNym]

How scary I always heard that toy guns were banned in Sweden because the gov't didn't want kids growing up thinking violence was the answer. But I think it's going to happen, in every country in some way, no matter what you do. It's human nature

You are right, unfortunately. People are violence-prone by nature. Those of us who can control our impulses usually become the victims of those who will not.

I live in Phoenix, AZ. Not exactly a low-crime town. Most of my neighborhood is okay, except for a block of low-rent apartments kitty-corner from my house. That's where all the trouble is. There've been shootings, drag races, fights galore, and one time, someone's apartment exploded! I live in fear that someone's going to shoot out our house, possibly hitting our 2-year-old son.

 

[najeena]

America isn't entirely full of gun crazed criminals. Places exist here where peace and quiet are the norm.

 

[Liesje]

America isn't entirely full of gun crazed criminals. Places exist here where peace and quiet are the norm.

True. It's mostly the huge cities that inevitably have neighborhoods full of gangs and other vice-related activity.

 

[U2Kitten]

There are plenty of peaceful, beautiful small towns and places out in the countryside where there have never been any murders in the history of the town. One of my favorite places to to in the mountains is a city of about 35,000, and it has had only 2 murders in the entire 216 year history of the town and one was a domestic dispute. The small town in WVA my mom is from has never had a murder. I walk around there at any time of the night and am not afraid. It's like a hundred years ago. I dream of living in one of those places someday.

 

[najeena]

My island, that can only be got to by ferry, has a population of 10,000. We have kids who vandalise and some burglary, but it's very isolation keeps violent crime to a minimum. The violent crimes we see are bar fights and domestic abuse.

 

[verte76]

U2Kitten, my grandfather was born in West Virginia. There are many small, beautiful little towns all over that state. I've got to get back and do some more ancestor-hunting.

 

[wolfeden]

America isn't entirely full of gun crazed criminals. Places exist here where peace and quiet are the norm.

That would be why I got the hell out of Boston as soon as I had the ways and means.
Having our sitting-room windows shot out Xmas eve was just the absolute last straw.
My dad still lives there, but you couldn't pay me to go back to the inner city.

The boonies have their own set of problems, mostly drug and alcohol related, or petty theft, but at least I can sit in my own house without thinking I should be wearing body armor.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Oh, my god, Lemonboy . Glad you're okay. s to everyone else who lives in areas where shootings are a common thing.

I remember, way back when I was a little kid, being in my old city (the one I'm originally from-it wasn't a very big city, but it was a decent-sized one) and playing outside with my sister one day, and all of a sudden, I heard these guys yelling at each other right on the street in front of our house, and one of them pulled out a gun. My dad opened the door at that moment to tell us to come inside, but we were already running to the house. He called the cops and they came and took care of it-thankfully, no shots wound up being fired. But still, that was...yeah...rather freaky. That city had a real problem with serious crimes like that, though-still does, in fact, I think it's just gotten worse over the years. Which is a shame, because I do love going back there and visiting that place-my old boyfriend still lives there, and some of my friends, who I haven't seen in a long time, are there, and that city just keeps expanding and all these neat businesses are coming in and everything.

The good news is that the last town I lived in, as well as this one, have a pretty low crime rate overall as far as gun-related things go-not really anything in the way of murders or rapes or whatnot in those towns. There were a couple of scary instances here last November, though-a meth lab was busted in the house right across the street from us (I was worried about hearing the guns from the police go off, but thankfully, again, no shots were fired), and then at the Pizza Hut here in town a couple of days later, the police had to get a guy who was harassing his ex-wife (she worked at that restaurant). My family didn't witness the Pizza Hut incident, though-we heard about it on the news the next day.

Omaha has some serious problems with crime, though-it's amazing how many stories I hear from that city about shootings and stuff.

The big problem in our area of the country, actually, is drugs. The last town I lived in apparently has a real problem with drugs, as does the city I mentioned earlier. It's mainly meth that causes a lot of that crap. .

Crazy world we live in sometimes, isn't it?

Angela

 

[Mullen-Girl]

Wow Lemonboy I'm glad you're ok

Yeah in my neighbourhood back home we had drive-by shootings and about 3 blocks from me they murdered a whole family execution style It freaked me out so much that I had trouble sleeping for weeks. It seems to have calmed down now, thankfully for my parents' sake

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Yeah in my neighbourhood back home we had drive-by shootings and about 3 blocks from me they murdered a whole family execution style It freaked me out so much that I had trouble sleeping for weeks. It seems to have calmed down now, thankfully for my parents' sake

. Yikes.

What in the hell is wrong with some people?

Angela

 

[TheWho4Life]

America isn't entirely full of gun crazed criminals. Places exist here where peace and quiet are the norm.

I live in a place like that. I've never been in a place where there was a drive by shooting. I've heard they happen though, but thats in town not here. I live in the boonies lol.

 

[dazzledbylight]

yikes

very glad you are OK, Lemonboy!

Physically, anyway...you #might be# a bit jumpy for a while {days, weeks}--it can be a natural part of trauma. If it really starts to disrupt your daily routine, then you might consider talking to someone.

I just must gently nudge you on your "daily small thing for you Americans..."

You've seen too many sensationalizing films & headlines. I mean even here in NYC. Statistically there are going to be some horriffic things happening just because of the incredible numbers of people. Areas of poverty especially with drugs/alcholhaL there in the mix often have alot more.

Yet drugs & alchohal can fuel shootings anywhere. Add in crimes of passion and organized crime anywhee in the city as well.

I lived in one part of a neighborhood for 27 years. In our genral area of a whole bunch of blocks, there'd been a few nastly assualts, robberies and maybe --well, I don't have any vivid memories of aactual news of { Life Forbid } murder or drive by shootings.

I bop all around NYC in general, though there are a few neighborhoods I'deither not visit or go only to the sections considered on the safer side. I usually keep my eyes & ears open, but I usually also don't walk around with the mental/ emotional setting of {hard to put} 'danger, danger around the corner!- so to speak. When somethings have happened it can take me a week or 2 to settle back down.

Even in the the city's "bad old days' late 70's, I was a little more careful but i didn't give in to the kind of mind set that got to alot of people outside of the " ghetto" {"the hood" for you gen y'ers & younger} in those days.

On my way to my sib's early in the morn to watch live "Live Aid", mind you, 2 guys who'd muttered something at me as I came out of the subway reappeared 2 blocks later, one went to grab my arm-- I shreiked, ran saw a dogwalker about 1-2 blocks away and they dissapeared. But it did rattle me bad at that point.

And twice knock'em out drag 'em out fights out [ 2 men, each time] litterally broke out in front of me . ThANK the Powers neither had knives or guns.

A big for you LB and everyone else whoes undergone any of this type of trauma.

 

[carrieluvv]

yah i have to say its not a small thing.
i know the swedish think that we tend to glamourize this type of thing through our culture contributions...th ebiggest things your seeing over there ie: music....but there are alot of people this affects obviously .
a huge ripple effect that brings decent people to thier knees to consult thier higher power , thats the only thing that alot of people feel like they can do is pray for the families and loved ones of those killed who are left on earth to endure these tragedies