Nothing prevents gang violence quite like the Bugle Corps

Over seventy thugs got into a melee on the Metro rail this past Friday, and the natives are pretty restless about it, offering up innovative solutions such as hiring more Poe-leeeeese and giving gangbangers the opportunity to be in a drum and bugle corps.

"You definitely know you got to have more police than what you already have, you know what I mean?"

Not really, no. Contrary to popular belief, most American cities are not magnets for violent thugs, so people are not used to seeing things like this. If this had happened in Alexandria, I would have been in complete disbelief, even though it's right across the water. When (not if) crazy acts of violence happen in DC, nobody is all that surprised. See this story from this weekend where random acts of violence in a small Virginia town are called "bizarre", and contrast it with a not unusually bizarre story from DC.

Also, you have to wonder about the audacity of these scumbags considering that they did all of this despite the countless "crime" cameras cunningly affixed to capture every angle of detail. So apparently the cameras do not project some kind of safety forcefield of protection, and DC Citizens should take note.

The Fox 5 Washington news I saw at zero-dark-thirty this morning had an interview with a woman who witnessed the brawl for about an hour, and said she huddled down with her children, helplessly waiting for able bodied men with advanced tools of defense to come and restore peace. I couldn't imagine how helpless she must have felt, especially while holding her children whom she had no chance of protecting - and when I say I couldn't imagine, I mean exactly that, because I would never take my kids into that city, and I avoid it like the plague. Call me crazy or paranoid, but my chances of dying old, wrinkled, and mean go way way down the very moment I cross the Wilson bridge, and I'm not about to pass that bad fortune on to my kids over some museums and such. I can find safer places for them to have fun that don't involve day-to-day shootings and massive fights.

This problem of extreme violence that infects that city is of every voting DC Citizen's doing; their solution to this common problem is not to have the community at large take united action to bring the peace, but to obligate the responsibility to someone else by giving out more shiny things to uniformed people who probably won't be in the area when you are huddled in a corner, peeing down your stockings. To quote myself, which makes me feel important this morning:

When a community is plagued with violent criminals, traditionally able bodied members of the community bonded together and took care of business, often times working in unison with the local police to bring the peace. This is not 'vigilantism' at all, and suggesting so is disgusting. Cops are given special tools and powers by the people, and paid to commit to the task of finding violent people full time; whereas citizens, ultimately responsible for their own safety, would be hindered during their day to day affairs if they kept that full time responsibility. In the end, every soul is charged with protecting their gift of life as the protector of the last resort, but that is not to say that many souls cannot act as one to bring order to their community.

These days the good folk of DC are too busy doing other things to provide order themselves. If I lived there, I would find out about the criminal history of the several scumbags that were caught and use that to start holding public officials accountable. I would also consider moving to a happy place where the locals don't think it's acceptable to have ten people gunned down with a rifle from a moving car by three thugs with huge rap sheets.

Again, call me paranoid, but I would discuss those things with the real estate agent while I was looking into the quality of schools and such. "So how are the schools? Mmmkay, now what about fun stuff for kids to do? Good, good. Has this city had upwards of a dozen shootings over a weekend while every cop on the police force was out barricading the streets to prevent it?" Hmmm. That may just influence my decision."

It's obvious that some folk don't think the way I do. Pity.