As I was leaving work today, I was told to be careful. The implication, I suppose, that because of the awful things that had happened earlier today that with the suspect then still on the loose, that I should be afraid walking home. That perhaps I shouldn’t go out for dinner if I was planning it. That maybe I shouldn’t go out for a bike ride after work even if it’s nice out, because who knows?
And I appreciate the concern. I get the fear. But you can’t wall yourself off from life because of some slim possibility that something will happen. You can’t hide from fear. For those of us who live or work or play in Seattle, well, it’s our city.
It’s not the city of the gunmen. It’s not the city of the drug dealers or the gangsters. It’s not the city of criminals. It’s our city.
Obviously, none of this is to say that we should ignore crime or murder on a policy level, or that there aren’t policies that we should implement to prevent future tragedies of this nature. I hope this prompts us to look at our gun culture and our culture of violence. What it should mean is that we can still live our lives in our city.