Like lots of you, I'm home for the holidays. For me, home is a small town of fewer than 1800 people in Western New York- nine hours from New York City, two hours from Canada. I like to say it like this: if you went into the stereotypical south, picked up a village, and slapped it onto the tip of New York State—that would be my hometown. My town is one of many similar places scattered across Western New York. Around here, people proudly describe themselves as "rednecks," little boys get air guns as soon as they're old enough to pull the trigger, and everybody wears camouflage.
That's why I wasn't surprised when I walked by a vehicle at Target and noticed it was decorated with stickers resembling bullet holes and shattered glass.
I don't have to know who owns the specific car I saw to recognize that this is a problem. I can see most of the boys in my graduating class applying those stickers to their own vehicle, given the chance- maybe even a few family members. And that scares me.
Moving to an urban environment has opened my eyes to violence. A friend in my building got mugged walking home from work. A woman was beaten and sexually assaulted in the same spot I had been standing waiting for a cab... 10 minutes after I had been standing there. Protests and memorials for lives lost to gun violence occur practically on my doorstep. I wake up every morning to news reports about how many people were shot overnight, and how many of those victims are still alive to tell their stories. So I suppose that's why those stickers on that truck hit me like a ton of bricks.
I'm blessed to not live in a place where a mass shooting like the recent ones in Paris and San Bernardino has occurred. I'm blessed that I spent my childhood in a place where guns were just used for hunting, and I never heard of anyone getting hurt.
But what I've realized is... it could happen to me or the people I love. I could just be walking to class one day, and everything could change in an instant. Real bullet holes- just like the ones on the side of your call- could show up on the buildings all around me without a moment's notice.
That's how it was for the policemen with real bullet holes in the sides of their cars. For the journalists overseas whose news vans get shot at. For the victims of the shootings in Paris, San Bernardino, Newtown, Aurora, and around the world who didn't have a metal vehicle to hide behind or drive away with. The victims that aren't alive to tell you why those stickers on that truck are insensitive- but the reason someone has to.
Bullet holes aren't a novelty- they are a reality for thousands of victims and families around the world. No one should have the right to use them for their own amusement. Too often, we forget that freedom of speech doesn't come with the freedom to live without the consequences of that speech.
You would be ashamed driving that truck with those stickers through Paris or San Bernardino right now. So don't drive it anywhere else.
