supremo-supremo-ex-ray-machino

watch out: i'm about to foam at the mouth.

consider yourselves forewarned.

this boxing day, a bunch of kids in their late teens and early twenties opened fire on yonge street (in toronto) while it was full of shoppers looking for post-christmas deals. seven innocent bystanders were shot, and one fifteen year old girl was killed in front of her mother, shot in the head, because of arguing gangs, or whatever these people were.

i'm outrageously angry about this. like, on the verge of spontaneous human combustion angry. and i'm fighting every urge to just fill this post with useless expletives.

i wish i had one of those guys, those shooters, in front of me right now, so i could shake him and shake him and demand to know which one of his personal problems warranted this public display of violence? which one of the problems -- which slight, which insult, which anxiety -- justifies and explains this shattered girl, twitching in a pool of her own blood and brains in front of her own mother?

what the fuck's the matter with people?

i can't stand it.

i actually can't stand it.

paul martin is building his current election campaign on, amongst other things, banning handguns altogether in canada, and while i may agree with this personally -- because i think that handguns are stupid and creepy, just like the people who use them or collect them -- i have to admit that i don't think this will solve the problem of growing gun violence in, especially, toronto. stupid creepy gun collectors aren't the ones displaying their macho vigilante prowess on our streets. legal guns aren't the issue.

can't someone invent a supremo-supremo-ex-ray-machino that will pick up handgun metal in houses so that we can just go in and take them? or *something*?? what is the answer to this?

i suspect the answer lies in community building.

canadians, this is our country. our home. our living room. we live here. it's time to take matters in hand. the police, by nature, have to follow a strict set of laws and rules when it comes to their conduct, and this is as it should be, but regular citizens are not bound by all of these same rules. mothers can go through their children's rooms. siblings can turn each other in. grandparents can shake the nonsense out of their grandchildren.

this is our home, our house, and we are allowing it to be befouled by mindless selfishness and arrogance. it's like we're all sitting around waiting for someone else to clean up the kitchen, or something, but it's not going to happen. it's *Our Kitchen*.

ugh. i'm just... i'm truly sickened.