Mass Shootings: Live With It?

 Today is the anniversary of the Allies invasion of Normandy in 1944.  I remember the 50^th anniversary and feeling amazed by how many years had passed.  In two years, it’ll be 80 years.  I saw “The Longest Day” when I was a kid in the 60s.  I thought it was a great movie but not too long ago, when I saw it again, I was saddened at all the lives lost.  My first dh Rich and I went to see “Saving Private Ryan” when we took a weekend vacation in 1998 or 99.  I couldn’t sit through the whole movie.  It was just too realistic.  I couldn’t handle the blood and gore.

Those rifles the soldiers used then weren’t like the automatics we have today but they were heavy duty and meant to kill people.  The automatic rifles some people like aren’t meant for hunting or protection.  Those weapons are to kill a lot of people fast, inflicting devastating and mutilating damage on the human body.

This morning I read an opinion piece by one of the surviving students from the Columbine High School massacre back in 1999.  I’d heard of mass shootings before but they were usually associated with organized crime hits.  These weren’t hardened hit men.  They were misfit teens who went into their school and started shooting.  They killed themselves.   The carnage was shocking.  We were all horrified by this awful tragedy but too soon it was forgotten. It was just one of those once in a lifetime things, right?

Wrong.  This is a list of school shootings since Columbine. https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-05-24/a-look-at-some-of-the-deadliest-us-school-shootings They just list the deadliest, which killed 169 children.  This only happens in this country.  Other countries have sensible gun laws and the number one killer of children is not gun violence.  But here, in the US, gun violence kills more kids than car accidents.  It kills more kids than cancer.  The statistic is absolutely monstrous.

Craig Nelson wrote the column about gun violence and surviving Columbine.  He was 17 years old then and recalled the trauma of friends being killed while he and other classmates hid.  Now he is the father of four children and this could likely happen again and to one of his children. 

That’s because, lately, it seems mass shootings have become the “new norm”.  You don’t know if it’ll happen at the grocery store or the movies or a clinic or a mall or a concert or a church or a parking lot or night club … you don’t know where and when the next one will happen.  It’s bad enough the Rethuglicans refuse to do anything about gun control reform.  Now there’s a new poll:  almost half of the formerly respectable Republicans think we have to just live with mass shootings.

My brain is exploding.  My brain is being overloaded with: shock, disbelief, outrage.  I think those people need to see pictures of the Alverde kids and Buffalo seniors who were killed with those vicious, deadly AR-15s.  Completely mind boggling.

Mr. Nelson had suggestions about what we can do instead of just sitting on our hands, shaking our heads.

This has to be politicized.  Those of us who are tired of children being shot up in schools and people of color being slaughtered at churches and grocery stores need to get up and use our voices.  Join a protest march.  Go to your local government council meeting.  Call your senators.  Call your representative.  Volunteer to help elect people who will be willing to make a change.  If we sit back and do nothing, it’s like condoning gun violence.

Mass shootings, the new norm?  Is that who we are?  Is that who we want to be? Check out Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States

Mr. Nelson’s opinion piece: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/survived-columbine-school-shooting-watched-uvalde-repeat-cycle-death-rcna31338?cid=eml_nbn_20220605&user_email=13660bfeb26f12d44f84b122ca5ed8d5f1acd1ca439a25e7fe835ee487c11d11&%243p=e_sailthru&_branch_match_id=897534115306322423&utm_medium=Email%20Sailthru&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAzVO7WrEIBB8GvvPJH4klxaOUij3GkHXzSlnVPxI6NvX%2Figss8PszjC21lQ%2BxjFoCHiVQaU0eBdeo0ifhEuR7rgV5Xy1ub11IWb3dEH5rWV%2Ft39mIr4If%2FS5rmv4j4F4dKXantR3TC64GDorLZ%2FuREMh%2BnZoF5AWsDF6WjpWF570UhVs%2F2in8gZpxoSqUvgBj9R0ammGoAQTYiXiAc4Q8Y2H34IOG584n5ZpJnxpBfOGR6%2Fe70wsy6R31HzZGTdS7qvUjHNQM5rVzDtTYBgoKd4Vn%2FG24ypmRLnegDHD2C9Kxm%2BmJgEAAA%3D%3D

Shared Post Written By Uvalde Mom

 This was on my Facebook News Feed this morning.  There are hashtags at the end so maybe it originated on Twitter.

"Sharing: This was heartbreaking to read but important we ALL hear her words and feel her pain. Maybe then people will fight to get assault rifles banned. At least I hope so.

Written by one of the #Uvalde victims moms:

The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.
She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.

Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know? Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work?  Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like.
She will never experience having a cavity. 
She will never experience having a cavity filled.
The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.

What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?

Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last? 
These are the things they don’t tell us.
Which of her friends did she see die before her? 
Hannah? 
Emily?
Both?
Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform? 
She just earned a Fire Safety patch. What if it got ruined?
There are no patches for school shootings.

Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?
She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.  We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.
None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.
There will be no spelling test on Friday.
Because there is no one to give it.
And no one to take it.

These are the things I will never know:
I will never know at what age she would have started her period.
I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.
(Or if they would have come in crooked.)
I will never know who she spoke to last.  Was it the teacher?  Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading.

Did she even scream?
She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.  She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.
“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so
Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”
Did the killer ever see Encanto? 
Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn? 
What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?

Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?
If so, what flavor? 
Cinnamon?
Wintergreen?

Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them?  Or did he drive in silence?
Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot? 
Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?
These are the things I will never know.

There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s.
Clothes I never need to fold again.
Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.
How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser? 
I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.
It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.

Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card.  Should I cross it out?
That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.

The dog will live longer than she will. 
The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.

What will the school do with her backpack?
It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.
A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.
A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.
A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.
Now there will be no more keychains to attach.
No more trophies.
Surely they can’t throw it out? Would they throw them all out? 19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?  Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life? 

These are the things someone else knows:
The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands--was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” 
Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?
not my problem my kids are grown and out of school
Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat
Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed
Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?

My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”

But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.

More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.
I beg the world:
Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows.

#gunviolenceawareness
#MoreGunsIsNotTheAnswer
#BanAssaultWeapons
#WeaponsOfWar
#CiviliansDoNotNeedWeaponsOfWar
#AmericanEpidemic
#CallYourLegislators #CallAllElected
#GVP #gunviolenceprevention"