It is With a Heavy Heart That I Sit Down to Write this Post
Not least, because I've written it in so many ways, so many times before.
From 2012: Gun sanity: "It won't work because..." <---This is BULLSHIT
From 2014: Why Can't Doctors Identify Killers?
From 2016: IT'S. THE. GUNS.
From 2017: Obligatory Reminder That "Sickeningly Evil" Does NOT Equate to "Mentally Ill"
I've been here on DU since 2001. Back then I used to engage in a good many discussions on how to reconcile the freedom from having your kids shot at school (the Columbine massacre was just a couple of years before DU came online) with the freedom from any restrictions on gun ownership. It was passionate then, too.
Over the years, I've heard pretty much all the arguments on both sides, all the refutations of all the arguments, all the rebuttals to the refutations, ad infinitum.
And people kept dying from bullets, propelled by firearms, in ever-increasing numbers.
I used to think, "If we can just ignite sufficient passion for keeping people from having to fear their fellow-citizens, we can overcome the money and the hype and come up with some sensible ways to allow hunters and target shooters to enjoy their activities and keep the schools and malls and concert venues safe, and maybe reduce the number of rage killings and suicides using firearms, too..."
That was about a hundred million gun sales ago, or thereabouts, I guess.
For a while, with each new horror... Red Lake, Virginia Tech, Gabby Giffords, Aurora... I kept thinking "Maybe this will finally tip the balance. Maybe this will be the one that lights up the American conscience to the point of finally outweighing the money, the hype, the fearmongering..."
And then came Sandy Hook. And I was sure then, that if there was any truth, any sense of decency remaining in America, that would be the catalyst, and change WOULD finally happen.
And since Sandy Hook we've had Orlando, and Sutherland Springs, and Las Vegas, and I've-lost-count-of-how-many-more tragedies.
And I am still trying to find words to put in this post that don't seem utterly futile.
I'm sick.
I'm weary.
I'm heartbroken.
When I was a kid, we did "duck and cover" drills in case the commies decided to kill us all, and that was scary, but it was a cold, second-hand, antiseptic kind of scary. We never had to walk past the dead bodies of our schoolmates on our way out of the shelter. Our parents never had to think, seriously think, on a daily basis, about kissing us and telling us they loved us when they sent us off to school because it might be the last time...
I honestly don't know why every parent with a child in an American school doesn't rise up and march on Washington and park themselves on the Mall with tents and energy bars and refuse to move until this goddamned do-nothing batch of pusillanimous weasels in Congress finally slam-dunk the thrice-cursed NRA into the dustbin of history.
I would personally bring crates-- hell, truckloads-- of energy bars.
But it won't happen.
And in a few weeks, maybe months if we're lucky, I'll be doing this again, sitting at my keyboard, trying to parse some sense into the pain and rage and despair resonating from yet another horror.
wearily,
Bright
= new reply since forum marked as read
A combination of reasons.
It pains me to realize what's in our oval office and moreso, all three branches.
I know this didn't come upon us overnight.
I continue to sustain an amount of hope. It has not completely disappeared.
I remember grammar school. The 'worst' thing we had were fire drills.
I never had children. It is unspeakable and unfathomable to imagine the ending of the life of your progeny. A child. My God! Especially a tragic one.
I also cry for those Rohinga who are suffering atrocities. The Syrians. Others at the hand of monstrous 'beings' that have existence.
I can't process a lot.
Were we born for a time such as this?
Simply no words adequate to express my disgust for our collective American hubris.
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