Kingston Perez
Aim Media Indiana
Kingston Perez is 3 years old. He is a victim of gun violence.
The Hope youngster has had to fight for his life since June 2, when a bullet allegedly fired by his uncle struck Kingston in the head. The suspect, Robbie Perez, 35, later shot himself during a police pursuit. He survived and is charged with attempted murder.
Kingston is among a disturbing number of young people who in recent weeks have been victims or perpetrators of gun violence in our state. Enough is enough. It’s past time we had some long talks about short tempers.
Virtually unlimited access to guns has instilled in too many people a casual disregard for human life. Time and again, small grudges become someone’s justification for taking a gun in their hand and pulling the trigger.
“It just seems like people don’t understand the consequences of their actions,” Bartholomew County Sheriff Chris Lane told The Republic’s Andy East earlier this month. “… It is very concerning coming from a law enforcement standpoint and just from a citizen standpoint.”
Guns certainly have some blame here. The spiraling number of firearms within virtually anyone’s reach is making the matter of people shooting one another over trifling matters an agonizing problem.
Lawmakers certainly have some blame here. They put their benefactors in the gun lobby ahead of public safety. They ignored the pleas of law enforcement officials who went to the Statehouse and testified eliminating permits to carry handguns would result in greater calamity and make their difficult jobs closer to impossible.
But ultimately, blame — and culpability — lies with the person who chooses to pick up a gun, to carry a gun, to point a gun and to pull the trigger.
That happened in Lincoln Park on May 24. Four people — two adults and two juveniles — who were playing basketball were hit by gunfire after an 18-year-old allegedly opened fire on them in a drive-by shooting in the middle of a crowded park. Luckily, no one died.
Our community cannot grow numb to this madness.
“It’s more than the public policy issue,” said Paul Helmke, a professor of practice at the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, who also is the former president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and served three terms as mayor of Fort Wayne.
“… That sense of what’s right and what’s wrong is important, and that’s something that you take signals from what our national leaders do, what we see world leaders do, what we see others do, what the media glorifies, and to the extent that sense of right and wrong is weaker, then you’re going to have more violence,” Helmke said. “That puts the pressure on the third line of defense, which is the government and police.”
Our community ignores the growing problem of gun violence at our own peril. We can begin to address this problem, as Lane said, by talking about it. Let us think of young Kingston to rally around a simple truth: Guns are never the answer when introduced to settle a dispute.
