Friday, October 19, 2007

Dawn Raids

I was woken up today at 5am by the sound of extremely loud gunshots. I think there was a total of 5 shots over a minute or so. In between I could just barely hear "this is the police" coming from a megaphone. Judging by how difficult it was to hear the police officer, I would say that this was happening many blocks away, but the gun shots sounded like they were right outside my house (they weren't).

I've been checking the news periodically throughout the day to see if anyone was reporting on what happened. The full details still aren't available, but the short version is that the Waterbury police department arrested more than 70 people throughout the city for felony gun and drug charges. I guess at least one idiot decided to resist arrest.

In between shots this morning, I started wishing we had tighter gun control laws. I know there are a million people who would be eager to tell me why it's good that guns are so easily available, but when you hear someone shooting up your neighborhood, you start wishing for a total ban. On the other hand, I absolutely appreciate the work that the Waterbury PD puts into minimizing illegal gun activity in the city. Unlike other Connecticut cities (New Haven, Hartford), Waterbury is not plagued by random shootings. It seems like there's a major raid every year or so, and it seems to help.

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