The Ballad Of Eduardo Illustrates The Evils Of Guns In Society

This past weekend, Telemundo aired the Schwarzenegger biopic Commando.  While this might seem uneventful, it should not.  Our former governor in Commando famously kills 109 individuals.  Individuals.  That’s right, each person killed by John Matrix was an individual with hopes and dreams.  Maybe even a cat.

Random violence has been a problem in the United States for decades.  If we can recognize that the victims of these crimes – including those whose lives have taken an unfortunate detour – are people.  Their mothers mourn their deaths just the same.

Let us take, for example, Eduardo Ulises Villa.  Eduardo was killed while descending the stairs in the garden of Arius’ villa at the final gun battle in Commando.  Let us imagine his life.  Eduardo grew up in a small village just outside of Caracas Venezuela.  His mother prepared fresh empanadas for the entire village.  His father was a fisherman by trade and died when Eduardo was just a boy.

Eduardo saw little future for himself in his little town.  An American chemical company began pumping runoff into the bay, and the fish quickly vanished.  In order to feed his feeble mother, Eduardo joined a private militia financed by cocaine entrepreneur Carlos Cardoza.  Eduardo did not like weapons, but loved the camaraderie amongst his militiamen.

In 1985 Cardoza sent Eduardo to defend the California villa of Arias.  Cardoza knew nothing of California apart from what he saw in the movies.  For some reason he always associated it with bell bottom pants from the Brady Bunch.  If all the girls looked like Greg Brady’s girlfriends, it had to be a special place, thought Eduardo.

Life in California was not what Eduardo expected.  He had to share a room at the remote villa with four strangers, all from Mexico.  They would clean the room using noisy leaf blowers.  Also, the food was not like his mother’s home-cooked empanadas.  Eduardo dreamed of the day he could take his savings and buy a nice house for himself and his mother in a peaceful village in Venezuela far away from the chemical company.  [cont'd below]

That fateful day was just like any other day.  Eduardo was cleaning his rifle when the alert siren rang.  He heard other militiamen muttering “Matrix” under their breaths.  They were preparing for a fall assault on the villa.  The photos tell the whole story of Eduardo’s tragic end.

The postcards stopped coming for Eduardo’s poor mother.  Finally, six months later one morning a stranger came to her door dressed in a black suit.  He did not have to say a word.

For every gun violence death, there is a story like Eduardo’s.  Stronger gun laws are the only solution.