A little girl who wrote about the dangers of gun violence in her city was shot and killed yesterday in her own bedroom as a stray bullet entered her house. Via CNN:
(CNN)Sandra Parks wrote an award-winning essay about the constant shootings in her hometown of Milwaukee and elsewhere, and the emotional toll they have on young people like her.
"Little children are victims of senseless gun violence," she wrote. " ... I sit back and I have to escape from what I see and hear every day. When I do; I come to the same conclusion ... we are in a state of chaos."
Two years after she won an award for her essay, bullets shattered Sandra's bedroom window as she watched television Monday night. The stray bullet fired from outside her home hit the 13-year-old, killing her, CNN affiliate WISN reported.
"She took it like a soldier," her sister, Tatiana Ingram, told the affiliate. "She just walked in the room and said, 'Mama, I'm shot' ... The bullet wasn't even for her."
This is the argument I always have with rural gun owners. They simply do not understand the sheer existential terror of urban life with so many guns. When you live in a city, you can be hit by a bullet anywhere -- including watching TV in your own bedroom, like Sandra. (This isn't even that unusual.)
Yet the NRA and the conservative foundations have fought to keep cities from imposing local gun control laws.
