Personal Response

Around 6:45 a.m. on Monday October 1^st, I received a text from a friend saying there was a shooting on campus. I was immediately freaked out, yet still went back to sleep. When I finally woke up for the day a friend of mine, Jessica, came over and told me it was a student on the football team. I immediately thought about and called my best friend, Mackenzie, because she is a cheerleader for U of M. I also thought about Keenan, the football player that’s in my English class. Before Jessica came over I went to lunch with my mom and that’s all we could talk about. I’ve lost friends through train wrecks and car accidents, but never a shooting. It ties my stomach into knots just thinking about it. Jessica is five months pregnant and we got to thinking and talking about how life is going to be in 17 or 18 years when her daughter is in college. It’s really scary to think of it that way. Later that night I heard about yet ANOTHER shooting at Ole Miss. It all makes me feel so uneasy, anxious and sad. What makes a person fell that they have the right to take someone’s life from them? How could they possibly justify their actions? They can’t. They aren’t God. I don’t know the motives behind either shootings but it certainly is unfortunate and horribly wrong all together. Taylor was only 21 years old, just a year older than me. I feel like my life has just begun and that his had as well. It saddens me that there are such cruel people out there. It would be nice if everyone could just get along but it’s human nature for us to hate. And it’s human nature for us to make bad decisions, and to do the wrong thing. But to take someone’s life? Someone that has a family, friends and a social life? It’s disgusting. I’m not saying that people that don’t have those things don’t matter, I’m just focusing on Taylor here. It’s really disturbing that Memphis is the number one dangerous city in the U.S. And this is just another prime example as to why it is.