It's a very violent world in which we live.

[Bill Cady]

Black people burn their neighborhoods

That’s one retaliatory action I’ve never understood but, in times they feel they’ve been abused or mistreated, blacks burn property. They also loot the few merchants willing to stay and do business with them in that locale.

Every day in my newspaper I read about murders and terrible mayhem. People claim to have had abusive childhoods and now expect to be forgiven, or at least understood to the point they’re pardoned, for acting out. Violently. People commit crimes and, when they find out they’ll lose custody of their children because of it, kill the kids. Some whimsically stop to kidnap joggers, or people they see out in public, and kill them for no discernible reason. Mothers somehow “lose it” and drown their babies in a tub, or run the car into a lake. Fathers without custody pick up the kids for visitation, then burn down the house with the kids and stay inside to die along with ‘em.

Granted, there’s more than a litter of suck puppies out there. These are individuals we might see in passing as we go about our daily lives and never suspect that person is a ticking bomb waiting to explode. It’s sick, depraved as hell, but it happens. Not rarely, but on a daily basis. In retrospect, many of us seek revenge. At the least we wish them a sad and painful fate. A large number of us read these accounts and, even those who don’t approve of the death penalty, sort of mentally justify these jerks getting the needle.

Hell, they’ve got it coming after doing something so horrible. That’s the consensus of most of us.

A homeless guy with some gears loose in his thinker is back in the headlines in San Diego for an atrocity in April of last year. For whatever muddled reasons he may’ve had, the man parked his motor home by the side of a busy freeway and shot at some cars. Hit a few and lodged a bullet in a teen girl’s body. She recovered, thankfully, and the fruitcake is now on trial. He could get 43 years behind bars if convicted. If he’s found guilty, I hope it happens.

Still, he’s a rarity. Homeless people almost never do anything like that. Have you ever even heard of any group with as many reasons for anger and to want revenge of some kind as the homeless community? These are people guilty of nothing more than zigging when they should’ve zagged in most cases. Yes, there are a few who came to this lifestyle from drinking or drugging habits they allowed to overcome their lives. We also have a larger percentage of us than the “homed” community who suffer mental illness because they’ve closed the institutions and set free so many who need treatment.

Even so, there are in excess of 4,500,000 people wandering the streets of our country on a daily basis with dire needs. When what they need more than anything is a helping hand from their fellow man, these people get sneered at. Scowls. Derision. They get treated like a mangy dog trying to steal food or property when all they are is people who suffered a great misfortune and failed to overcome it.

I can give you stories at great length about those who suffered a tragedy and couldn’t get past it in time to avoid destitution. I have done exactly that in many past posts. These are people no different than you are, and certainly no different than I am, since I was one of their number 1,592 days and nights. For 4⅓ years, I was in that community. I’ll always be a homeless guy as long as there are legal Americans without a roof, a bed and food to eat.

Can you imagine what life would be like if all of us, people with more justifiable reasons for rage than most, acted the way all the “violence freaks” do it? None of you would ever be safe at any time.

I’m just sayin’.

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