I’m MAD. I’m so MAD that this happened. It was so unnecessary, so unthinkable. SO CRUEL.
No need to go into the details. What I want to discuss is how we can get people to change the talk, the discussion that leads to such madness. I’m tired of the rhetoric our country has adopted on killing unborn babies, i.e. the abortion debate, when it is not paying a lick of attention of ways to keep thriving youngsters safe, and now, with this horrid turn of events, alive.
Just google shootings in Chicago having to do with children and too many results appear to name. Yet, all politicians do is focus on women carrying unborn children who have a choice on what kind of life they would like they and their child(ren) to live. How can these same people, who want to dictate what a consenting, grown adult do with her body, and that with her child by choice or unwanted child, also say that it’s okay for grown adults to wield weapons of destruction so powerful they are used in crimes to kill children?
The rhetoric has just gone wrong. Literally dead wrong. These conservative politicians cannot talk out of one side of their mouth saying that abortion kills children and how we must SAVE children by preventing abortion while disallowing strict gun control which ends up killing or injuring upwards of five children a day?
We have lost our freaking minds, America. We have become too selfish, too inwardly-focused, too-caught up in superlatives to remember that at the end of the day, all that we have to propel us forward are our children. When we don’t put them first, we all lose. Politicians who purport to want to bring children into this world because abortion is bad, deadly, wrong, need to do more then to save and help those children once their out of the womb. Because you can’t stand on both sides of that debate.
I think it starts with strict gun control. First, I’m going to read up on how and why we got here. This article, written in August for the Washington Post, about what the Prime Minister of Australia did with regards to gun control really stirred me. Why can’t we do the same?
Next, I’m going to sign Moms Rising open letter to the NRA to stop blocking commonsense gun control. Because we’re not a nation of savages, even though the world could easily think so at this point.
Last, I’m going to donate to at least one family who tragically lost a child last Friday. A Jewish boy. It could have been anyone. It could have been my little first grade Jewish boy. I’m also hoping we can change the conversation. Even if it’s just one blog post at a time.
What did I miss? What else can we do? I feel so helpless.
Sara, here’s what I think you missed but perhaps it just didn’t fit .
I am tired and sickened by people who blame these kinds of massacres on America being a “godless society.” First of all, more peopel in America believe in god than not. However, America was not founded on “biblical truths” as one article I read states. It was founded on religious freedom and the SEPARATION of church and state. I respect those who find their path in religion. I too participate in my religion. But you don’t have to be religious to have values, ethics and morals. More people in prison believe in god than not. There are plenty of wars fought in the name of religion. Is this god-like? Is this moral? Some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers were/are not religious just like some of the greatest scientists believe in god. These shootings did not happen b/c we stopped making it mandatory to worship god in public schools. They happened b/c some young man’s brain went haywire and he didn’t have the medical attention he needed. Or it’s just not available b/c whatever he was afflicted with is beyond our current ability to undersgtand and treat. There is so much we don’t know about how the brain works, what makes people from “good families” get violent. This young man does not fit the standard profile of an alienated youth with no parental involvement. It’s a very complicated problem to address. Believing in god works for some but not all. When these types of problems are reduced to “godlessness” it minimizes the need for a wide-spread investigation into causes and solutions.
Bravo, Sara. I am proud to call you my friend. And if you ever want a guest blogger to write about how we also need to address mental health aid in this country, you know who to call.
Very proud of you for taking action! I will follow in your determined footsteps.
Thanks for the support, you guys!! Love you!