June 13, 2003

• So I just found out that a cousin of mine was indicted on a pair of charges related to having killed someone.
  
  I’d heard about the deaths, and the initial charge, but now he’s going to trial, and there are statements in the press from the victims’ families, and so on and so forth. It’s kind of disconcerting.
  
  I can’t help but think about my extended family, and how relatively free we’ve been of this kind of news, and how lucky we’ve been in that regard. My cousin’s circumstance, that is, the story of how he came to shoot two people, isn’t far-fetched or exceptional. It’s clear to me that whatever mistakes in judgement he made within that circumstance would be very easy ones for anyone to make.
  
  And it’s also clear to me that the deceased weren’t evil people, and that my cousin isn’t evil, either. None of them deserve to be dead right now, but two of them are.
  
  There’s also a whole diatribe inside me about responsible gun ownership, but that’s for another day.

  • 12:09 pm
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