Scary...

I was home yesterday night and I started hearing way too many sirens and helicopters hovering overhead, and since that brings a faint, disturbing echo of 9/11, I was wondering if there hadn't been some horrible attack in a subway station or something. I could see neighbors looking out their windows and so I turned on the news. Fox news was on (sorry) and they had to talk first about some inane shit about somebody's hair on American Idol and other prerecorded segments before I learned that a crazy gunman had gone on a shooting spree that left him and 3 innocents dead. This happened about three blocks away from my house. Too close to home. One imagines, what if I had gone down to buy bananas from the Turkish guy in the corner? Or had been walking on Bleecker St on my way home?
The gunman, an ex-marine, emptied fifteen bullets on the back of a 33 year-old Mexican bartender from Puebla, at Pizzeria De Marco's. He then killed two volunteer police officers who were unarmed, before armed police shot him dead. Asshole.
I feel terrible about the young police volunteers, 19 and 28 years old. And I feel particularly sad about my compatriot, who I can imagine was a hard worker who minded his own business.
I hate guns.