Can You Hear Me Now

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Once more my news feed is filled with stories about another school shooting. Four people were killed, nine were injured, and the perpetrator appears to be 14-year-old boy with a history of violent threats. Last year the boy and his father were interviewed about the boy’s disturbing postings on a gaming site, but nothing came of it. The father admitted to having guns in the house, but assured the authorities that the boy did not have unsupervised access to them.

Here we are one year later and the boy apparently did have access to an AR-style weapon and used that weapon to carry out his previous threats. Why were there still guns in the house? Why wasn’t the family in counseling? Apparently, nothing was learned and nothing was changed to prevent yet another horrific tragedy.

My kids are long past their school years, but I have a granddaughter in the 5th grade and my two youngest grandchildren are starting daycare this week. To say that I don’t think about school shootings and the safety of my extended family would be ridiculous. The killings in Georgia have only strengthened my fears ten times over.

I wrote the following immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting — back when I still had a Facebook account. Since then, there have been many more tragedies and thousands of innocent children have been killed or maimed. When will we stop praying and start doing?

Here we go again. When will we stop hearing about crazy men, guns, and senseless killing? Whether it’s a congresswoman and her constituents in Arizona, movie goers in Colorado, the girlfriend of an athlete in Kansas City, or school children in Connecticut, it has become nearly impossible to read, listen, or watch the news without learning of some new act of public violence.

All across Facebook, I see my friends sharing images that ask for prayers for the children and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School. While I appreciate that tragedies such as this one radiate grief well beyond the circle of those immediately affected, prayer is not the answer. Instead, we should all be working to prevent people such as this latest one (or possibly two) from having such easy access to guns and ammunition. Skip the prayer and write or call your representatives to enact sensible gun control. At the same time, tell the NRA to step aside and allow Americans, and not the gun lobbyists, to speak for the wishes of the country.

Nobody is asking that all guns be banned. All we want are simple changes to help stop the madness. It has become far too easy for a madman (and they are typically men) to buy an unlimited number of guns and countless rounds of ammunition. These folks aren’t out hunting for sport. They are out to kill people — innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The time has come for reasonable people to come together and demand that something be done. Yes, you can pray for the victims. You can even pray for the perpetrators, but that isn’t enough. People have prayed and prayed and the bullets still fly and scores of people still die. We all need to take a serious look at guns and the damage they do to us as a whole.

Enough is enough. Demand change or be willing to experience these killings over and over again.

Thank you for reading.

It’s not the knife to the heart
quickly plunged and twisted
or the single shot aimed and well placed
it’s not the leap into the blind unknown
or the rage of fire consuming all in its path

It’s the slowness of one
followed by another
until what was is no longer
until what could have been
will never be known