RANDOM ACTS

Close your eyes and picture this if you can: it’s Boxing Day, one of the busiest shopping days of the year and everywhere you look there are masses of people on the sidewalk, all of them hoping to find a bargain. All except one person. This young man is different from all the others scurrying to and fro because he is carrying a gun. Now try and picture in your mind a pretty fifteen-year-old girl with a lovely smile and buoyant personality who is shopping on Toronto’s busiest street like thousands of others, but she is also different because on this day on this busy street in front of thousands of people she will be shot to death.

This young girl would be nameless for days but by nightfall on the 26^th the whole of Toronto would be thrown into a state of shock. Not only had this young girl- a complete stranger to the shooter- been shot but six others had been seriously wounded as well. Apparently this young man had a vendetta against a certain group or gang and had decided that the best way to deal with his anger would be to shoot them all, but what he ended up doing was murdering an innocent girl.

Now the city of Toronto is no stranger to violence but when something as senseless and absolutely vile as this happens it causes even the hardest of people to stop and think: where the hell did we go wrong? So many questions and emotions are swirling around in my head right now that it is hard for me to express exactly how I’m feeling. Of course I’m shocked just like the rest of the city, but I’m also enraged at the federal government for not taking our pleas for stiffer gun laws more seriously. Mayor David Miller has been extremely vocal in trying to get heavier laws put into effect but it seems that his voice is going unnoticed, even though in the last year we have seen more murders by gunfire in the city than we have in the last fifteen years. I have always been and always will be vehemently against guns of any kind and this most recent act of cowardice only strengthens my conviction to do whatever I can to help ban them.

Jane Creba will not be returning to school, she will not ring in the New Year with her family and she will never walk down Yonge Street again. An ignorant young person who is no more than a child took her life and thought that having a gun in his hand would make him a man. A family is left to mourn and a city is left to pick up the pieces, once again with little help from our federal government.

I love my city and when such horrible things happen it makes me sick to my stomach, but what does make me proud is the way that we have all come together to help the families of the victims. If anything positive can be taken away from this it is the understanding that although our government may not have an ounce of humanity left in them the city of Toronto does.

If you have comments about this article please email us @ comments@shebytches.com. We will post them on the right. You can also contact Anna @ anna@shebytches.com.