Small towns can be really cool places to live. When something this awful happens, though, then it's hard to deal with .

I hope the victims are all OK.

You hang in there, OK?

I'm from a larger town and just moved here a couple of years ago. It still surprises me sometimes how close knit this community is. It made me uncomfortable at first with the gossip and all, but it also has an upside. Our neighbors do things for us and help us out a great deal. We try to return the favors. Back where I'm originally from that kind of thing is not common.

started all the gossip!!! Ha!

The robber got shot, but we don't who shot him yet.

It doesn't look good for the robber, he was shot in the neck and the head. Probably won't have much of a life ahead of him if he survives. My wife did not know him. She made the comment that if most people shot someone like that, even in self defense, it would likely be a hard pill to swallow. I agree.

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...making a DECISION to kill someone, even an absolutely justified killing, is one of the most
emotionally painful and traumatic events that one can experience (with the exception of
someone along the sociopathic scale).
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The three most common experiences causing serious PTSD symptoms in police officers are
getting shot, losing a partner in the line of duty and shooting someone (and I'm not sure I
have those in the right order). It took departments a LONG time to realize that serious
counseling/support was badly needed by the officers who shot someone... even justifiably.
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How much more so for someone whose job description did NOT include, "Must be ready and
willing to shoot someone if and when it is deemed necessary/preferable"?
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I hope he gets some help, whether he realizes he needs it or not.
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No one was shot, because the person I was aiming at stopped advancing at the last possible moment and ran, but I'd already made up my mind to pull the trigger and was applying pressure to it when he stopped.

The next 5 years of college, I spent a LOT of time in the on-campus mental health office, took a lot of anti-depressants, did some pretty reckless things, contemplated suicide more often than I can count.

Things eventually got better, and I'm even on speaking terms with my dad again, but I know I'll always have the emotional scars from that incident. On the plus side, though, I credit my shitty upbringing to now devoting everything I have in me to be a good father to my own daughter, so it worked out in the end in a weird way.

He tells some funny stories and some not so funny stories.