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Protecting Our Children: Thoughts on Parkland

I am so angry, upset, emotional, sad and so many other emotions in the wake of the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida recently.

Forget the issues related to gun control, or which side you fall upon. I’m upset because the same thing happens again and again: a tragic shooting, people are outraged, people rise up, people speak out.

Politicians pledge to do something to make people safe. But they don’t. Then it all dies down and we go about our lives.

Until the next shooting.

Seventeen people dead at school, where they are supposed to be safe and protected.

Think of Sandy Hook – little children, gunned down maliciously when they are supposed to be loved and learning. Think of Columbine.

Think of everything between then and now.

And think about how many school shootings happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave compared with every other country in the world.

Think about how in England, citizens are not allowed to be armed, and police officers also do not carry weapons except for select elite units. Australia got rid of the guns and eliminated the problems that stem from them.

But I digress. I don’t want to get political. I want to get emotional. Because all humans, regardless of their stance on guns, share that essential human quality of loving others, feeling deeply, and sharing hurt at the loss of loved ones.

Will this time be different?

I’m moved by the fact that all these high school students took action. After Sandy Hook, parents who lost six-year-old children went to Congress, people made impassioned pleas for change, and nothing happened.

Proposed legislation didn’t pass.

Going to school is a dangerous endeavor these days.

When the survivors in Parkland spoke to the NRA and Marco Rubio recently, they wouldn’t let them get away with not answering questions. They insisted. They persisted. They pushed for answers.

For commitments.

One student asked Rubio “will you commit today, in the memory of the 17 students who were killed, to not take any money from the NRA for your campaign?”

Rubio could not commit to such a move. It’s shameful, that a gun lobby has more power than impassioned youth. That safety does not win out over a personal devotion to metal-derived power.