I wanted to share this story. I work for Time warner cable as a Preventative maintenance technician; basically I am the guy in the bucket truck that works on plant issues/outages and works too much on-call.
A couple of weeks ago a line of ours was damaged and a few of my co-workers had to put a temporary line up in between two telephone poles, well they forgot to do something which caused an outage but only for 3 customers. When I pull up to this house a woman in her mid 40's meets me at my truck and would like a business card so she can have her boss have contact with someone to confirm an outage since she works from home.
She is very friendly and I explain what the issue is and I get the work done within 20 mins and she is back online, well while I am at the top of the pole she decides to chit chat. I notice her tile work on her patio and some spare 18" tiles and make a comment that I used to be a tile setter in california, she explains that around the time her husband was killed at Von Maurs she worked for a tile distributor and she and her boyfriend had installed it.
Now I moved here in 08' and was not aware of the incident so I asked about Von Maurs and she explains what happened, Once she was done explaining I asked a few questions such as, "was he mentally ill?" answer was yes. "im guessing he was a normal homicidal maniac and took his own life when he was done taking innocent lives?" yup. At this point her voice began to crack as she explained her son had just the other day moved all her husbands belongings out of storage, and the damage that the cowardly monster had done. and all I wanted to do was give her a hug and make the pain go away, but nothing I could have done would heal the wounds left. At this point it seemed good to change the subject for her emotionally but she continued on and composed herself, so I then figured I would ask 1 more question "So being a victim of gun violence what are you feelings on the current 2nd amendment rights, and the gun debate ?" answer was, I just dont see why anyone needs an assault rifle. "well was this guys gun his or stolen?" he stole it.
At this point I figured it would be best not to press this person on gun control or ask any more open ended questions as it would solve nothing and her son came home and gauging from the pictures of the victims he is the spitting image of his old man, plus the son seemed a little apprehensive about a man talking to his mother. topics were switched and we spent some time talking about their garden and politics. I guess my point was to show even though my intentions were honest we as proponents of gun rights can never forget the hurt that can be caused by these rights. It was my first time ever speaking with someone who has lost a loved one to gun violence, she seemed like a very sweet woman and her son a smart kid.
