Rants & Raves: Death at beach hard to take
Readers react to the July 19 fatal shooting at Coligny Beach Park on Hilton Head Island:
It's too late to get our quaint island back. It's too late to get all the guns off the streets. It's too late for this generation to unlearn hate and violence. Best to be in the real world and push back with kindness and service to the community. Just saying. Chris Kammire
Absolutely no respect for life or the families that could have been harmed. This is a tragedy that so easily could have been avoided. The victim is not only the kid who got shot, but every single local resident that makes a living working here and every tourist that vacations in this beautiful place. Todd Offen
It sickens me that people think you can completely eliminate crime. And that people involved are automatically (bad) -- teenagers, black, white, Hispanic; it doesn't matter. They are people, some of which may have a tough life -- abused, confused, abandoned, mental illness. I am in no way making excuses for people's actions. But seriously. Calling people names on social media nonetheless, where their family and friends -- who most likely never would have thought this would happen -- can see makes you no better. No one person is perfect. No one town is 100 percent crime-free. Bluffton and Hilton Head are 99.9 percent better than the town half the size I am from where people are raped, murdered, or shot and kids abused and abandoned while their parents are getting high. We need to be grateful for how little violence we have here. The only reason we hear about every occurrence is because it's rare for it to happen here. It's unfortunate that it's happening more and more ... but this is the world. Alexis Walker
Hilton Head needs to stopsweeping its drug and crime problems under the rug and deal with it head-on. If you ever lived near the beach, you know how dangerous it can be. It can be like that anywhere. Local crime is not the only issue; tourists bring in their fair share of problems as well. Prayers for the family. Hoping someone out there learns from this that there's no going back once you pull a gun. Carie Moreau
This story was originally published July 26, 2015 at 7:42 PM with the headline "Rants & Raves: Death at beach hard to take."