Do you personally know someone who was killed by a gun?

[jcmaine72]

53. Yes. A childhood friend who grew up and got invovled with drugs.

We were friends from grades 4-8. We played a ton of baseball and Atari together. When we reached high school, we started hanging out with different crowds and drifted apart. The dudes he starting hangin' with were always in trouble of one kind or another. All had police records for things like petty theft, auto theft, and, of course, drugs.

My (now former) friend starting dealing pot in 10th grade, and by the time I reached my senior year, he had dropped out of school altogether and was rumored to be selling hard drugs like coke and heroin. I left the town we grew up in for college but we still had common friends, and from time to time I'd get updates. I heard he spent some time behind bars for assault and a some more on a weapon's charge.

A few days after his 24th birthday someone shot my childhood friend in the head an killed him in what was described as a "drug deal gone wrong". As far as I know, they never caught the person who killed him. He had a baby daughter who grew up not knowing him. She would be almost 30 today. Sad stuff.