A few years ago I was working in a certain retail store. I remember one particular shift when I was absolutely exhausted and it was one of those work places where it was just a few people of the many staff there who carried the store. A LOT of lazy staff who weren't needed would walk about with clipboards or notepads trying their damned hardest to look professional whilst actually not doing anything useful.
Anyway, on that day, I had done a stupid amount of hours already and at the time, I had 2 jobs and was working crazy hours during the whole week I remember that I was at my evening job too later and really wanted to just sleep forever.
A customer came to the counter. The store was busy and I was dead on my feet. The customer had a watch he wanted to return. No box. No receipt. No proof of purchase whatsoever. When I politely, repeatedly, for about 20 minutes told this customer that we couldn't do a refund as he had no proof of purchase, he argued a lot with me demanding for what he said was his. He then threatened to shoot me with "the gun in his pocket" and then went around the store showing apparently what was a gun to the other customers who seemed to get frightened. Did this bozo really actually have a gun? I wasn't sure. I radioed to our security guard who informed me that he "was on his way". The security guard was about 247 years old so him being on his way from wherever he was (outside smoking) would take at least 2 weeks. So I decided to ring the police who probably would have taken just as long anyway. But before I could, the customer advanced towards me. He was a big, brutish oaf with a slightly unbalanced walk due to him being overweight and also had drool coming down from his mouth to his double chin. "You gonna give me back my money or do you want a bullet in your face". Defiant, stubborn, stupid (whatever you want to call it) and me being the completely opposite to big, brutish oaf-like overweight and completely drool-less and double-chinless , it wasn't easy for me to clear my throat and reply "No proof of purchase, no refund. If you're going to shoot me then do it. I've had a long week."
The brute, who now had his hand in his inside pocket which from the look of it, definitely had SOMETHING in it, glared at me for about 30 seconds but it actually seemed like 3 hours. Then he grabbed the box-less, receipt-less watch from the counter and stormed out of the store.
The security guard then decided to spring into action and came out of nowhere demanding to know where this brute was.
"He left 5 minutes ago." I said.
"I would have showed him." said the security guard.
Of course you would have.
It was only after the incident happened when some customers from outside the store came rushing in to say that they had seen a man with a gun. The managers after hearing what had happened came out of their hibernation to see if I was OK. Not really sure what they were doing whilst the incident was happening. "He could have shot you", "What if he shot you?" "Did he really have a gun?" were things mostly said to me then. And also I got a "Next time, do whatever he wants." My shift had finished and I just wanted to go home-oh but wait, I had to go to my other job where I got more of the same. I couldn't explain to people that if I wasn't so tired, then I would have been scared. But I was alive then. That was the main thing.
Recently some dickhead shot dead 12 people and wounded 58 others in a mass shooting outside a cinema in Colorado which was showing the new Batman film. He claimed he was "The Joker" but then also said that he "doesn't remember anything and doesn't understand why he is in prison." Strangely, he used to study neuroscience.
Anyway, he spent $15,000 which is about £9500 on guns and ammunition. He bought them online.
How fucked up is it that you can buy GUNS and AMMUNITION online?? I couldn't even believe it when I had heard that. I know you can buy just about ANYTHING online but surely there should be some kind of thing to see what is going to what kind of person it is that is buying??
In a world where a 30 year old like me sometimes gets asked for I.D when I go to buy a bottle of wine, for someone can go online and purchase guns so freely and so easily to kill people is sickening. Didn't the online stores where he bought them for even question what he needed them for? What he needed ALL THAT MUCH of it for?
To cause harm and kill people and nothing else.
Why are guns even available to buy in places like The United States of America? Countless times, some maniac has been on a mass killing spree shooting people in schools, colleges and now at a cinema. Yet all that happens is the same thing that happens every time. The police will say how sorry they are for the families and friends of the victims, The President will talk some BOLLOCKS about how "in times like these people need to come together" and some other crap about "the human spirit triumphing above adversity". Just because people like to hear about that kind of shit.
But that shit isn't good enough anymore. Too many people-innocent people-have died but nothing really gets done about it.
What would happen if ALL firearms were banned? Or better still, as well as being banned, stopped being produced in the first place. Oh but then too much money is spent on firearms and money still has to be made so I guess that is out of the question. Money is more important than innocent lives so it seems.
To me, when things like this happen (and they will happen again and again) people who are supposed to be strong and powerful like The President, just end up looking weak and pathetic.
Get rid of the guns. I might have made the choice to be defiant, stubborn and stupid but there are a lot of innocent people out there who don't even get a chance to make a decision before they are killed and it is such a waste of life. Not to mention the pain, suffering and helplessness their family and friends have to go through.
It is not right.
