The killer is among us and has taken 36 lives

From DORJANA BEZAT 

Monday and Tuesday are patriotic days. Everywhere the national flag was flying and the song "Oh how good I was to be Albanian" echoed.

These days were followed by the next day, when in an alley of Laknas, for a word of mouth, the neighbor killed the neighbor for a canal. Why didn't he pay 5 money for his construction, the 70-year-old chose to pay with 7 bullets, killing and injuring his neighbors.

This is not an isolated case. During this year alone, 36 people lost their lives in our country, the vast majority of them because of a word of mouth. Someone for a canal, someone for a glass of alcohol; "why did you talk bad to me?", "why did you look at me crookedly?", "why did you like your girlfriend on Instagram?" and all kinds of other arguments that, if taken together, are not worth a lifetime. The 20 or so years that the perpetrators will spend in prison are not worth it.

Breaking car headlights, mobile phone chargers, occupying the parking space even years ago have taken lives. They have even served as a starting point for a revenge saga that has continued like a game of dominoes, increasing the number of victims year after year.

It is utopian to think of a society without crime, as long as Abel killed Cain, but it is horrifying to think that the thread of tolerance between us is so thin that the solution lies only in the TT pistol and the Kalashnikov.

The community, the inspectors of the area, the police stations do not know anything until the moment when, after two exchanged words, the guns explode and the shell remains on the ground and the body is breathless.

Organized crime, murders for drug trafficking, mafia, etc. are often widely discussed in television panels and also in auditoriums. Banal crimes are rarely talked about.
Even the police announcements end with the sentence "for weak motives". The event the next day is forgotten because it does not resemble a thriller where interceptions, codes and strategies are unraveled.

The scheme in these murders is simple, it starts and ends there. The first is the word, the second is the bullet. Both (or even more) protagonists end their lives in a second. One dead and the other in prison. They often leave behind an enmity and in the worst case an obligation to draw blood.

What drives a person to kill over a momentary argument?
Why is taking life so normalized?
Where does this frustration come from that is expressed in the weapon? These questions remain unanswered.

After weeks or months, the next crime occurs, almost identical to the first, where only the names of the protagonists change. The channel is replaced with something else equally banal.

If for that first type of crime we find the responsibility on the authorities who have the obligation to investigate and prevent the events (although in recent cases we have seen police lined up on the opposite side of the law), in banal crimes prevention is zero.

Anyone with a gun in their hand is suspected of becoming a murderer for a glance, for a parking lot, etc.

The infamous '97 is almost 2 decades away, yet the aftermath is still fresh. Weapons hidden from that year but also newly purchased sow death everywhere. Events like this one on Wednesday afternoon demonstrate the urgent need for the demilitarization of the population.

During the national holidays, I returned to reading an iconic expression of American President John Kennedy "Ask not what your country has done for you, but what you do for your country".

Handing over an illegal weapon that is hidden somewhere like a sleeping murderer makes you a good Albanian patriot.
More than shouting in the stadium wearing red and black, you show your love for your country even when you stay silent in a conflict and let the police act and the court speak.

The gun does not make you a man! If you want to be a good Albanian and a person with values, keep your head down and work. Mirrors are changed, channels are divided, EVERYTHING RETURNS TO LIFE.

*Top Channel Information Department