Our attitudes about guns and gun violence are surely influenced by popular culture. Cowboy movies, for example.
McKenzie Elliot, the victim of a drive-by shooting, was like every child, a pearl of great price.
A so-called “stray bullet” killed her. The term “stray bullet” suggests we might take her death less seriously – as if it were an accident.
She was, of course, another murder victim. There is no solace for her parents. The community and the city are no less violated.
Why do we ever think of bullets fired on city streets as strays?
Movies are the culprit. Maybe the film victim was merely “grazed,” another antiquated word. Wounds delivered by the high-powered weapons of city streets today are often fatal. And are the wounds less hurtful or a death less permanent because the shooter didn’t mean it? In the movies, it was all "make believe" anyway. The language wasn‘t all that important. No harm, no foul. Not in the old cowboy movies.
But today?
When sociopaths fire guns on city streets, do we adequately describe the fatal result when we speak of “stray” bullets?” Are we less distressed?
To call it a “stray bullet” diminishes the crime. The shooter didn’t mean it? A child is still dead. The community is no less aggrieved.
We should think of these deaths as pre-meditated. People who carry guns – and there are so many more of them now – should know the penalty they invite.
There is no such thing as a stray bullet.
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