in DC: Tragic shooting in NE

I was just talking to Neal about how everything just seems to be falling apart these days, mainly focusing on our financial crisis and how in some states there’s just no gas to be had when I read about this on DCist:

The teenager accused of gunning down a woman who refused to make him a hamburger will remain until bars until his next court appearance.

WJLA has an article and video report of this bizarre story but it just floors me. I admit that my upbringing was in the burbs, and guns were something cool that we would sneak into our fathers’ hiding areas and look at, but most of us knew enough not to touch them unless given permission. Yes, my father like many others had us shoot into the sky on various holidays. It never made you cool to have one, and when I was taught how to use one, the kickback of it was enough to make me think that it really wasn’t that big a deal.

So when I hear about stories like the above, or recent shootings in my neighborhood and others that started out from something as small as a disagreement… a freaking argument where one party clearly thought, “I have a gun, that’s the way to settle this.” I just don’t get that way of thinking. And while the above story has an element of absurdity to it, I walk around the city all the time and I see guys that just plain act like dawgs to women that walk by and ignore them. In whose mind does it ever make sense to pull out a gun and shoot someone because they didn’t listen to you? Over something as stupid as a spurned advance.

You can say it’s the state of the world, or just the way it is in DC, but I don’t get it, I really don’t.