Another Mass Shooting??

Yesterday 17 people died at the hands of 1 gun-wielding person.  In just 45 days this year, there have been 18 school shootings.  There have been 30 mass shootings overall in our country this year.  Think about that.  Thirty mass shootings in 45 days.  In 2017, there were 346 mass shootings in our country.

Our country was shaken in 2012 with the alarming mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.  But, what has happened since then?  It has just gotten worse.

On a social media discussion in my area, several moms have chimed in with their suggestions for how to make our kids safer.  And at first, I was in agreement...

We need to make guns harder to get, many have said.  One mom's response was, "This will not happen because, as Americans, we have the right not to be inconvenienced by the deaths of school children."  How SAD is that?  I mean really.  Yes, I get that we have this 2nd Amendment giving us the right to bear arms, but that doesn't have to be a blanket right.  Why SHOULDN'T there be restrictions as to what type of arms we bear?  Why not more extensive background checks and longer waiting periods?  The 2nd Amendment doesn't say that we have the right to decide to purchase a gun and get it in our hot little hands immediately so we can go on a shooting spree, right?

Then there's the issue of holding our legislators accountable. Many moms posted about this, even with links to groups we could join like Moms Demand Action.  Well, I don't know about in other states, but it turns out the NRA-sponsored lawmakers in our state have been gerrymandering the election districts to guarantee their seats, so we've been stuck.  One post noted that Senator Richard Burr has received over $6.9million from the NRA, and Senator Thom Tillis has received over $4.4million.  These men don't have the balls to question their principles.  They just rely on the money to keep them in their position.  No matter how many times they tweet those BS "prayers and condolences," they are doing NOTHING to fix this enormous problem.  Hate to break it to you, folks, but prayers are NOT going to fix this.  Your God is sitting up there shaking his head at you, telling you to get to work on the problem, and you're doing NOTHING.  Who deserves more forgiveness-- the person who commits murder, or the person who looks the other way EVERY TIME another person commits murder?  I know, you think all your sins will be washed away, so why bother pissing off a few gun lobbyists when you can just look the other way as our children, parents, brothers and sisters DIE, because surely you'll be forgiven in the end?

But here's where the discussion on yesterday's school shooting lost me...

One mom posted that "among many takeaways, one is that your child having a cell phone is critical in these emergencies."  Another noted that she was "stunned [that] anyone can just walk into most schools around here."  I argued that actually, most elementaries (and middle schools) in our area are now locked and you must be buzzed in at a security camera.  And other mothers' responses were that the ENTIRE CAMPUS of every school should be completed fenced and locked.  WHAT?  Let's think about the logic here.  We're going to fence in every school campus in our country?  And what, put armed security guards at the gates and check every kid and staff member through a metal detector before they enter campus?  Anyone been through security at a big airport recently?  Think about how many times you've griped about the 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours you've spent in a line trying to get through security so you can catch your flight.  Now imagine that outside every school in our nation every morning.  That's insane.

Let me go back to the first statement about cell phones, though.  See, I think these phones are actually part of our problem.  In the last decade or more, we have become more and more isolated as smart phones have become more prevalent.  Everyone is stuck in their STUPID phone.  When I'm teaching a class of teenagers, we joke about how, in order to focus and participate full in class, they need to put their phones far away from their bodies, zipped up in a backpack, so that they aren't drawn by the electromagnetic force and psychological need to touch their phone.  But it's not actually a joke.  It's real.  And it's messing with our society.  Remember when it used to "take a village to raise a child?"  Well, it still does, but the village is too busy being individuals staring at their smart phones, getting news and gossip from social media, so they can't or DON'T pay attention to those around them.  In fact, they now find it easier to bully and ostracize others because they can do it from behind a screen, which only contributes to our problem.  Maybe if I rewrote this mom's statement to say that it could be helpful for the child to have a standard flip phone that makes phone calls only, then I could get on board.

I don't want to be locked out of my kid's school.  I don't think parents should be seen as outsiders.  I think schools should be close communities.  But until we overhaul our society, the fear of a murderer arriving on campus will preclude the joy of being a welcoming community to all school families.  And we will continue to hurt ourselves even more until depression runs rampant and nobody even remembers the days of greeting a stranger with a smile and open arms instead of scrutinizing their every move to see if they are a crazy killer.

Folks, these mass shootings are not only a mental health problem and a gun control problem, they are a SOCIETY problem.  Our society is becoming less and less of a society at all.  Society is defined as a body of individuals living as members of a community.  Is that really what we are?  A community?  I've witness an awful lot of individualist, selfish, isolating, and unwelcoming behaviors lately, and I bet you have, too.  I'm clinging desperately to every bit of community sense I can find, but as a whole, I think we are failing.  And when we fail to provide a sense of community, people fall through the cracks.  And they can't see their way out.  And no one reaches out a hand to help them.  And no one steps in to stop them from making deadly choices.

Can we really prevent all murderous crimes?  NO.  But, we can significantly reduce them by rewinding.  We need to retrace our steps back to find the times when communities took better care of each other.  We need to rewind to the time when military grade assault rifles were not available to civilians.  We need to reintegrate the good of our past with the progress of our present and future.  But to do this, people have to be honest with themselves, and be willing to put others before themselves, including making tough decisions to change the status quo in order to save lives.

Look at how much money and effort has gone into preventing another 9/11 event.  Almost 3,000 people died from that terrorist attack.  Meanwhile, over the course of 2017, domestic terror (yes, that's what these mass shootings are) killed over 14,000 people and injured over 29,000.  These numbers are staggering, yet what is being done?  We MUST stop this.