Why I Left America

I launched this blog a year ago with a post titled Why Did I Come Back to Canada?, in which I shared how I was drawn back home after nearly 20 years of living in the Bay Area.

But there’s another side to my story. Because I didn’t just come back to Canada. I left America.

I never intended to write about this. I never planned to share the story about the afternoon I looked up from my kitchen table on a hill overlooking Mill Valley, CA and locked eyes with the pilot of a police helicopter. About the day Tamalpais High was locked down after a person dressed all in black was seen circling the high school with a gun.

But last week provided a stark reminder of why I left the United States.

Last week, my nephew’s best friend was shot and killed.

Two 14-year old girls got into a fight outside of his townhouse complex in Dallas, Texas. One girl pulled out a gun and fired.

She missed the girl she was arguing with and instead shot and killed my nephew’s best friend.

He was 11 years old.

De'Evan McFall

De’Evan regularly walked home from school with my nephew. They loved playing football together.

He was 11 fucking years old.

America is one of the most amazing countries on the planet. Its entrepreneurial spirit is second to none. It’s the source of so many of the incredible innovations that have changed the course of humanity.

But for all of its greatness, America is a country that has become completely numb to the idea that it’s okay for children to die.

Gun violence is the #1 cause of death for children in America. More than automobile accidents. More than cancer.

It is the only wealthy country in the world where this is the case.

Americans have been brainwashed by gun manufacturers, lobbyists and politicians into believing a self-serving false equivalence between guns and freedom. Its increasing polarization, amplified by fear-mongering media, has led growing numbers Americans of all political stripes to believe they must own guns for their own safety.

And its children pay the price.

Kids all over the world get into fights. Every middle school and high school on the planet is a combustible mix of self-discovery, popularity and hormones. But only in America do normal teenage conflicts regularly end with gunfire.

And sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any will to change this. No matter how many children die.

Rest in peace, De’Evan.