Happy Mothers Day!

Bystanders comfort a shooting victim after gunfire injured 19 people during a Mother's Day parade
in New Orleans on Sunday

I spent my childhood in New Orleans. I loved the place. I could not believe it when the family moved to Baton Rouge, only about 90 miles away when I was a junior in high school. I thought my life was ending. I could not imagine living anywhere but this city that I loved so much. And, as a matter of fact, I still do love New Orleans. But I would not live there.

This incident, where some crazed guy with a gun just shoots into a crowd of people at a Mother's Day parade, a spontaneous so-called "second line" event that the city is famous for, and hurts 19 people (one has since died, I learn) is also the kind of thing the city is famous for. It and its sister city Baton Rouge up the road are infamous for the amount of crime they suffer, especially violent, life-endangering crime like this.

But let's all remember, even as we try to wrap our minds around these kinds of disconcerting facts, that guns don't kill people, and gun controls cannot possibly diminish such crimes.

We are a doomed people, I tell you.

Related articles

• Police ID suspect in New Orleans mass shooting (sacbee.com)
• 19 New Orleans shooting victims included 2 kids (sfgate.com)