Post Hurricane Maria recovery is what most of our populace have been focused on.  Despite these efforts a desire to usher in 2018 with a sense of purpose and joy must have been deep seated within us.  Certainly, none of us anticipated the latest dreadful occurrence of yet another horrible death by gunshot in the Town of Portsmouth.  Not that we didn’t think this could ever happen, but it is just not the thing anyone would have liked to happen.   Obviously, this created a dreary and gloomy new year’s observance for Town folks, especially friends and families of the fallen and those of the perpetrators’.

Sadly some among us will immediately seek to shut down this expression with the notion that when things like these happen around us we are just mere reactionaries.  Truth be told, there is nothing wrong with being reactionary.  Still, this characteristic must and should be complemented with a level of action before the fact, or probably as a means of preventing such occurrences.  So, yes there may be a level of value in the criticism, but it is not sufficient and should not be used as a tool to shut down future endeavors to address this problem in our society.

Clearly, Portsmouth is not the only place with this problem where young men kill each other with guns, but this happens too frequently among our people; besides it is also one that seems like a bad wound that never cures.  If we have to chronicle the number of such deaths, and or disappearances and injuries which occurred through guns, and or some sort of violence among our young people (men in particular), then this is too many.  Continue reading →