“That James Holmes is insane, few may doubt. Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection.” ~ Roger Ebert

100,000 Americans die every year due to domestic gun violence.

*”Correction all: the 100,000 guns deaths should be 100,000 incidents of death or injury w guns per annum. My bad. Number still sucks.” An intelligent, reasoned, argument/discussion of these numbers, with many cited links, is here. Search “Suicide.”

An op-ed piece in the NY Times worth the read. Excerpt.

Immediately after a shooting last month in the food court of the Eaton Centre mall in Toronto, a young woman named Jessica Ghawi posted a blog entry. Three minutes before a gunman opened fire, she had been seated at the exact place he fired from.

“I was shown how fragile life was,” she wrote. “I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath.”

This same woman was one of the fatalities at the midnight screening in Aurora. The circle of madness is closing...Read the rest of Ebert’s post.

Here’s a fuller excerpt from Jessica Ghawi’s blog, published just after the shooting in Toronto (link above).

“…I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.

I say all the time that every moment we have to live our life is a blessing. So often I have found myself taking it for granted. Every hug from a family member. Every laugh we share with friends. Even the times of solitude are all blessings. Every second of every day is a gift. After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given.

I feel like I am overreacting about what I experienced. But I can’t help but be thankful for whatever caused me to make the choices that I made that day. My mind keeps replaying what I saw over in my head. I hope the victims make a full recovery. I wish I could shake this odd feeling from my chest. The feeling that’s reminding me how blessed I am…”

She’s dead, now. So needlessly.

~

“A tragedy unfolds in three tweets.”

Finally, an eloquent letter via…yup, Jason Alexander.

“…We will not prevent every tragedy. We cannot stop every maniac. But we certainly have done ourselves no good by allowing these particular weapons to be acquired freely by just about anyone…”

For updates and context, click here.