While the future's there for anyone to change it would be easier sometimes to change the past

by anna at 08:55 AM on September 02, 2006

In Philly a couple peered out to their driveway and noticed that a man was busily raping a teen there. It happens. This being the City of Brotherly Love i.e. Incestual Homosexuality, they rushed to the distressed damsel's rescue.

What happened next is the mystery. Somehow the rapist managed to pull out a pistol and shoot the couple dead while continuing to rape the teen. When he was done he shot her too. A full recovery is expected, at least physically. A "suspect" was arrested at the scene.

A "suspect?" A guy is there with a smoking gun and pants around his ankles and his slimy junk hanging out and two corpses and a bullet-ridden teenage rape victim are lying around and he is a "suspect?" This guy was a suspect like OJ was a suspect. Oh wait, he's innocent. OJ, that is.

Shooting someone dead isn't as easy as it looks in action movies, any more than beheading Nicole Brown Simpson was a piece of cake. (Just look how long it took to decapitate Nick Berg in the popular webcast. 13 minutes to be exact.)) It requires precise aim, more than a little luck and dealing with the recoil of the gun. The safety has to be off and one must have a bullet in the chamber. Unless the piece is semi-automatic there is that hammer thing to deal with as well. Killing a couple who are rushing at you flush with adrenaline is even harder still. Doing it while, er, doing it is a feat almost unimaginable.

Now just imagine the psychological state of said fully recovered teen. She's been brutally raped in some random couple's driveway, seen them splattered willy-nilly as he continued to pummel away, possibly caught the AIDS and then got shot herself. Having known some teenage girls in my time, I don't believe any of them could ever get past this ordeal. I see a suicide in the offing.

What a nightmare. And what would this philosopher for our times make of this.