On April 14 in Kansas City, Missouri, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was intending to pick up his twin brothers from a friend’s house and ended up knocking on the wrong door. He was shot in the head by 84-year-old Andrew Lester.

On April 15 in Hebron, New York, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was in a car with friends being driven by her boyfriend and they were looking for another friend’s house. After turning into the wrong driveway, Kaylin was shot and killed by 65-year-old Kevin Monahan.

On April 18 in Elgin, Texas, 18-year-old Payton Washington was shot by 25-year-old Pedro Rodriguez after her friend, Heather Roth, accidentally got into the wrong car. Washington is in critical condition after being shot in her back and in her leg. Roth was grazed by a bullet, treated, and released.

Yarl has been discharged from the hospital and still recovering. Yarl is black. Lester, the shooter, is white and was taken into police custody on the day he shot Yarl, April 14, and then released. He wasn’t charged until April 17. Go figure, right? Lester shot Yarl twice through the glass window of the front door, later saying he thought Yarl was trying to break in and that he was “scared to death” of Yarl’s size. Yarl is a 5-foot-8 and 140-pound bass clarinet player in his high school band. Scary.

I can not tell you how many times I’ve been mugged, mauled, and pummeled by 140-pound bass clarinet players. When I went to New York City two weeks ago, all my friends told me the same thing: Watch out for 140-pound bass clarinet players because this one time, at band bamp… And sure enough, as soon as I got off the train in Penn Station, there was a 140-pound bass clarinet player waiting for me, saying, “Give me your wallet, motherfucker. Toot!”

Gillis and her friends were in two cars and pulling out of the driveway when she was shot by Monahan, who came out of his home and fired twice into the car with a 12-gauge shotgun. There was a standoff between him and police for over an hour. Because of a lack of cellphone reception, Gillis’ friends drove her to the next town before she could be treated. She later died from the gun wounds. Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder.

Washington and Roth has just completed cheerleader practice when at a grocery store parking lot they used for their carpools, Roth got into the wrong car and realized it when she saw Rodriguez in the passenger seat. She quickly got out and after getting into her friend’s car, she saw Rodriguez approach and rolled down her window to apologize. And then, according to Roth, “He pulled out a gun, and then he just started shooting at all of us. Payton opens the door, and she starts throwing up blood.”

There are stand-your-ground laws in this nation that allows you to shoot someone if you’re being attacked, and in some places, merely threatened. It was used successfully in 2014 in Florida when George Zimmerman got out of his vehicle to confront Trayvon Martin about trespassing. Despite outweighing Martin by over 160 pounds, Zimmerman was able to get off scot-free after shooting and killing him, and then later claiming he was afraid for his life, so he took Martin’s. Trayvon was armed with Skittles which may outrage gun-humping fucknut conservatives as much as a can of trans-Bud Light. Taste the rainbow.

Now, we’re not even waiting to be threatened. We’re just shooting at anything that moves.

Knocking on the wrong door, pulling into the wrong driveway, and getting into the wrong car should not be a death sentence.

When I was a teenager, I once walked into the wrong apartment. I was visiting my older brother and staying at his apartment for a night. I went to meet some friends and on the way back, because all the apartments looked the same, I walked into the wrong one. There was a guy on the couch who I scared to death and I’m really glad he wasn’t holding a gun. I was probably 15 and weighing around 140 pounds myself, and I ran. I ran as fast as my skinny scrawny legs could carry me. When I reached my brother’s door, I saw the guy standing outside his apartment, looking very confused. Nobody was shot. Nobody died, though I could have from embarrassment. I kept waiting for that guy to knock on the door, or just barge in, but it never happened.

A few years later, I had just picked up a girl for a date and realized she was going to open the door to the wrong car to get in. Because I’m evil and enjoy a good bwahaha, I let her do it, then after she was in the wrong car, I opened the passenger side to my car and she about died from embarrassment. Nobody was shot. She scolded me while I laughed at her, then we went bowling and had a good time. She didn’t give me any but the bwahaha was worth it.

And I can not tell you how many times I pulled into the wrong driveway, or even just turned around in a stranger’s driveway. You’ve done that too and yet, you’re still alive. Nobody should be murdered for committing a harmless mistake.

This doesn’t happen in other nations. Here, it happened three times in one week. This is bullshit. We have to get over our gun fetish. We also need to calm down. Hear people out before you start shooting at them. Writing for The Guardian, Francine Prose asks: How do we change the belief that it’s a good idea to shoot first and ask questions later? How do we repair this broken chromosome in our nation’s cowboy DNA?

I live inside an apartment building and I’ve had several encounters with people who don’t live here. Usually, they’re homeless and I just step over them as they’re laying in the hallway. If they don’t bother me, then I don’t bother them. I haven’t slaughtered any of them yet.
Coming home one night around 10 p.m., I passed a guy standing around in the hallway loitering. After getting into my apartment, he knocked on my door to ask how he could get an apartment in this building. He believe that since the front door of the building wasn’t locked, that gave him the right to loiter and override the sign on the door saying “no loitering.” I wasn’t in the mood for it and told him to leave. He was an asshole standing between me and the Big Mac I had just brought home, but I still didn’t murder him.
Last year, two young guys knocked on my door at 2 a.m. I was not pleased. I cracked the door open, they told me they were looking for one of my neighbors. I told them they had the wrong apartment and pointed to where they needed to go. I was very grouchy and irritable and despite the fact they were snot-nosed entitled white-privileged millennials, I didn’t kill them.

Maybe I live in the wrong country.

Creative note: This cartoon might be too subtle. It’s not getting many reactions on social media, which also might mean I’m being shadow-banned, and one of my proofers didn’t get it at all. One guy on Twitter thought it was about Chinese spy balloons. But then again, there are also people online who think my name is actually “Claytoonz.”

Music note: I listened to Pearl Jam.

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