I can’t do a blog post today. My little essays are meaningless in the face of such tragedy. I feel despair about the carnage, and about the possibility of it ever getting better. But if we didn’t learn anything from seeing twenty 6-year-olds being slaughtered, if we weren’t moved by a President’s tears, there’s no hope for us.
So I’m spending my time praying and hugging my family. I’m sorry I’m such a downer. I’m sure by next week, like the rest of the nation, I will have forgotten, mostly. And continue whistling past the graveyard, hoping it never happens to us personally.
Please say something. I’d appreciate it.
Perhaps I am one of the minority of your readers. But I am not afraid to also give my point of view.
I was raised with guns in the home. I was also taught respect and responsibility, not only towards those weapons, but for any weapon, and responsibility for my actions. My father taught me to shoot and hunt, and enforced safety. I have taught firearm safety and shooting skills, am a life time NRA member, and hold distinguished expert ratings in rifle and pistol. Even in light of negative events in my life, never would the idea of using any weapon to hurt/maim/kill cross my mind.
For a long time, people have not been held accountable for their actions. This extends well beyond headline-making events. Everything each person does requires a conscious act of responsibility for the consequences. This concept has been forgotten in the last few decades, no longer taught by schools nor by parents, hidden in microscopic print.
Am I pro-gun? Yes. Am I pro-gun control? Also, yes, although perhaps not to the extent some may desire. Yes, I am an anomaly in my own family of siblings, as no one else shares my viewpoint.
Ginger, thanks for your thoughts. My family are all responsible gun owners, too, and they respect their weapons’ power and the law.
I don’t quite know what the answer is, but whatever we have right now isn’t working. On the Brady Campaign (anti gun violence) site, they educated me that 95% of illegal gun sales are done by 5% of the dealers. So they are trying to clean up that 95%. That kind of a change might help. There might be others. I mean, lots of little steps might add up to positive change for people in both camps. Because we all stand to lose if everything stays exactly the same.
I am in the same place. I keep looking for words to write but I have none. I find myself in complete despair and am having a hard time finding my usual positive nature. It’s in there somewhere but, right now, it’s buried deep.
I feel this bubble of motivation rising in me , Janis. Feel like the Sandy Hook parents shouldn’t be pushing this boulder up hill all alone. I might get involved to be able to look myself in the mirror. Preferable to despair.
I have no wise words from my vantage point in Canada. What I do know for sure, is that greater gun control equals fewer mass shootings. You see, we are very much like you, we share a very similar culture, we see the same movies, our kids play the same video games, yet our statistics are dramatically different—the only element that sets us apart in this issue is that we have greater controls over gun ownership. So they can stop saying that “it’s people, not guns that kill”, or “it’s a mental health issue”. It’s the availability of guns, nothing more.
Yes, Diane, but here in the USA, nobody cares.
Actually WE do care. Why are THEY winning?
Hmmm.
For me, I’m afraid to speak because every damn one of my family is pro-guns. Oh, sure, they’re responsible gun owners blahbedy blah. And I don’t want to put my life on hold to march for this cause, which will lose me friends and make me a pariah online and in person.
And yet.
Twenty first-graders dead, and I’m alive.
Right there with you, Lynne. I was going to post this past Monday after a 7-week hiatus, but after I woke up to the news, I just couldn’t do it. I am sickened, and the midterm elections can’t get here soon enough. We can’t give up, but it sure is hard when our so-called leaders are spineless, soulless asshats.
Headlines in the New York Times this morning (alongside those saying Trump just made it harder for women to obtain birth control) say he is very likely to win reelection. Because why? I can’t even read it. Either of them.
After the massacre in Vegas, I felt gutted. Hopeless. Helpless. Shell shocked. The tradegy is devastating on so many levels. My European friends cannot understand how a country as civilized as ours, can tolerate this. For Europeans it is a no brainer. Less guns equals less violence, Why does gun control remain such a volatile topic?
Of course the answer is money, Pat. The gun industry needs to sell its product. So they buy politicians who further their agenda. Why do we Americans allow this? Because our beautiful national identity, that of being rugged individuals who will never let a government step on our necks, is being used to manipulate us into allowing this unregulated toxin/poison. Resulting, ironically, in exactly the thing we say we don’t want.
It so pisses me off that many are not even willing to have discussions on what makes us the most violent country in the world and work for solutions to improve that. It also is heartbreaking that in the absence of being able to blame this on one of his target groups our government leader took such a low profile. I am despondent and ashamed at our country.
I’m despondent, but not ashamed. I’m despondent and pissed. This national inertia could change in a heartbeat, but I sure as heck don’t know what it’s going to take. And all the #LasVegasStrong billboards (oh puke!!) aren’t going to change that.
We were able to see such good amid the horrifying things we saw and felt. I understand your pain and helplessness. We are reeling.
Yes, you live near there, and would feel the drama even more. I can only imagine, Donna. For health’s sake, I appreciate that you’re looking at the good side too. (Star Man said, “humans are at their best when things are at their worst.”) Let me do the stewing, my friend. I can do enough for both of us..
I’m …numb. I have outrage fatigue. When you think the week -month-year can’t get worse, it does. I’m tired, and hopeless, as it feels those in power have a total disregard for the wishes of their constituents, including pleas over the years for gun control. Wish I could uplift you Lynne, but can only commiserate.
Commiseration IS comfort, Trish, so thanks. I think I hit the wall with Sandy Hook. Because if we don’t care about our own babies being massacred, nothing will move us. I say US meaning THEM, of course. And for a while it seems as is THEY are the usual creeps: the NRA, politicians on the NRA payroll, mouth-frothing anarchists. And then you get into discussions with friends you love and respect, and they say, “Well, if you take away all the guns, only bad people will have guns….” Etc. And I just need to close my door and weep.
But this will pass. Drama closer to home than Las Vegas will divert my attention, a few mealy-mouthed, easy-to-avoid laws will be passed, and life will go on. Until the next madman opens fire.
Well, you said it all. I feel the same way; if we haven’t learned our lessons about gun control then we’re never going to. It angers me so, but I suppose we must keep championing the cause, or there is really no hope.
Karen, I stopped posting political things — which this, unfortunately is — on Facebook recently, because it’s too easy to use a flamethrower there. But here at AnyShinyThing, I do feel it’s my safe place to express my opinion. Which is why I’m talking about this today. My readership is large, and I have a pretty big voice after 8 years of blogging (!!!) So I’ll use my personal platform for that. And yes, we do need to keep talking, and marching, and in every little and big way working to save the next elementary school from massacre that is tacitly approved by Washington.