CeaseFire - Cincinnati

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I was just reading the news before heading off to bed and I learned that today there were 4 separate shootings in Cincinnati resulting in 2 deaths.  Moreover, in the two years that I've been living in this city, I've heard and read about more gun crime occurring here in that period than I did about gun crime occurring in Calgary for the 10 years that I lived there.

Indeed, it seems that gun crime is so rampant here that it often even fails to garner a reaction.  In my two years at the University of Cincinnati, there's been at least two incidents where there were exchanges of gunfire immediately outside the residence halls and most people seem to not even be all that concerned about it.  Further, I myself once called in a report of shots fired (I was lucky enough to hear a gunfight going on while I was sitting on my balcony enjoying the fresh spring air) and the police weren't even all that interested in my report.

Now, I'm not calling for gun control or anything like that.  I'm just noting that there seems to be a ridiculous amount of gun crime in this city and I wanted to give a shout-out to the people over at CeaseFire Cincinnati, who are a bunch of average folks who have taken upon themselves to actually go out, engage in some grass roots activism, and try to do something to help reduce the numbers of shootings that occur in this city.

For anyone who's interested in getting involved with CeaseFire Cincinnati, click on the link above and sign up to get involved.