Dear everyone saying it’s too soon to talk about gun control,
Please memorize the numbers above. Please know they only represent a small fraction of the mass shootings of the last 18 years. Please click through to the articles and read them with a soft heart. Read about the human beings, simply going about their day, only to be suddenly shot and killed by someone they never knew. Find yourself in their stories, or identify with their loved ones. Think long and hard about how you would feel if you received the news that the person you love the most in the world is never coming home.
Can we talk about gun control now? Can we talk about compassion and kindness, empathy and vulnerability? Can we discuss ways to make it harder for a person motivated to kill to obtain a firearm?
Can we all agree that working to make our churches, our schools, our concerts, our Mosques, our nightclubs, our Jewish Community Centers and our entire country safer for our children is a good, crucial thing and not something political?
We all bleed the same, no matter our political affiliation. We have to work together; we have to listen to each other or this will only get worse. All our lives are potentially at stake. These mass shootings do not discriminate between old or young, rich or poor, male or female, democrat or republican.
We must empathize with each other.
We must connect on the basic level of humanity.
We are all human beings.
Generally speaking, we are much more alike than we are different. No matter our political affiliation, we love our children and want them safe. No matter who we voted for, none of us want someone to die by gunfire while sitting in church, even if that church is different in doctrine, denomination or deity. As much as we support the second amendment, no reasonable person would actually sell a gun to someone you knew would murder dozens of innocent men, women and children. Or police officers.
When you hear of a 14 year old shot and killed, you should hurt as much as if it were your 14 year old.
When you hear of a classroom of 1st graders brutally murdered, you should hurt as if your 1st grader had just been taken from you.
When you find out a husband and father was shot to death, you should cry as if it were your husband, or your father.
Why do we immediately defend our position that we can’t mess with the 2nd amendment? Yes, we absolutely can. Imagine if those who penned the constitution said, “We can’t add anything to this. It’s complete the way it is.” We wouldn’t even have the 2nd amendment for you to so vehemently defend!! High school students and elementary school students alike are paying for your right to bear arms with their lives. IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK OUR FOREFATHERS WANTED???
How about we have the tough conversations? How about we listen to each other, learn from each other and work together to save the future? How about we put our differences aside and focus on our similarities…mainly our desire live and love, without the ever increasing potential that we or someone we love will die a bloody death in another senseless act of violence?
We have to attempt to feel the pain of those who have lost loved ones in mass shootings. We have to mourn with them, as though our life is the one which will never be the same. Until then, we will continue to have more and more shootings. Until it’s our child. Our mother. Our brother. Let’s not wait until then.
