Lake Charles has endured its share of senseless crime recently.

The city saw eight shootings in seven days, beginning July 21. Thankfully, no one was killed. When the trigger is pulled that often, it’s only by the grace of God that no one dies.

Were the eight shootings a sign of things to come? Southwest Louisiana has been regaled lately with talk of the influx of money and growth. With all that good, though, comes crime, as Police Chief Don Dixon has pointed out.

Crime tends to happen in spurts and even though Lake Charles is growing, the hope is that those seven days were an aberration, rather than what the future holds.

Preparations in housing, roads and the like are being made for the coming growth. How to deal with crime must be a part of that. Dixon said law enforcement agencies in the area are proactive and will continue to be so.

There’s something else at play here that is out of authorities’ control: the idea that guns, or violence, are a way to settle disagreements or get what one wants.

While some of the shootings appeared to be robberies, others were drive-by shootings, which are usually retaliations for some real or perceived slight.

Lake Charles knows far too well of the danger of gun violence played out in the streets. In March 2009, 14-year-old Alexus Rankins was killed during a drive-by on Dixy Drive. Rankins, a bystander, was not the target.

Taking up arms to settle disputes speaks to an abject lack of value for human life.

Just over a year ago, three young men — 20-year-old Jeminskian J. Arvie, 23-year-old David Jermaine Galmore and 20-year-old Fitzgerald Tremayne Guillory — were playing dice and minding their own business at the park when another young man, Armonta Hadnot, then 18, gunned them down for the few dollars they had.

School shootings, workplace shootings, mass shootings — they all seem to be an everyday part of the news cycle. Southwest Louisiana was fortunate to have made it through the recent spike in shootings without any deaths, but if we don’t remember the worth of human life, the tragedies of innocent people lost will visit us once again.(MGNonline)