Vicki Gardner: A Response From A Local Victim of Gun Violence

Oct. 6, 2015

My heart is breaking upon news of another mass shooting in this country. Just more than a month ago, I was a shooter’s target. It was a terrifying experience that left me with a long healing process ahead. Since that incident, I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate this complicated social phenomenon and how it can be resolved.

For sure, violence has crept into our everyday lives in the form of entertainment. Upon return home from two weeks in a trauma center, I tried to divert my attention by watching television. Virtually every channel featured a crime show with shooting as the central theme. After being a personal witness to two murders and being shot myself, my attitude toward these forms of “entertainment” has changed from a passive, don’t-care-for-it attitude to one of asking, “How did we come to this?”

We see so much maiming and killing that perhaps we have become desensitized. Some may argue that we have always been exposed to violence on TV and in movies. This is true. However, we live in unprecedented times when it comes to both the clarity and quantity of violence in our entertainment. And now the virtual world of video games has made a generation of young people participants in the violence. Can we truly claim this has played no role in what we all are witnessing?

So what can we do? The answers may lie not in far off legislative halls but much closer to home. Perhaps it is parents monitoring more closely what their children consume in the terms of media. And, as adults, maybe it’s refusal to give into our baser desires of enjoying for entertainment what we abhor in our culture. On a community level, let’s begin by “loving our neighbor as ourselves.” We can draw closer, get to know our neighbors, work together and hold each other accountable.

I’m not sure that hasty legislative action will be the solution to this problem. But I am certain that if each of us will allow the solution to begin with us, we can ensure that the tragedies we all have witnessed grow more infrequent with time.

Vicki Gardner
Executive Director
Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce
[email protected]

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