I avoided the news, but I couldn’t escape it when the second shooting happened.
There is no more avoiding. It is inescapable now. Nowhere is safe anymore. Being shot at is now the most American thing that we do. 40,000 American’s a year die in gun related deaths. We are so far ahead of the rest of the world in this statistic, that it looks like we are fighting a war. Compare that to the 58,000 that dies in 10 years of fighting in Vietnam.
This is a crisis.
And though mass shootings steal the headlines, it is suicides that are driving these high numbers. Mental illness and access to guns.
And yet we let this happen.
We let people tell us that the right to a gun is all encompassing, and that this is what freedom looks like. I am free to be shot at. I am free to not be safe. I am free to go to vigils after massacres. I am free to get in line to donate blood for help victims.
We let people tell us that sick individuals perpetrate these acts, but we don’t do anything to help people get the care they need. They are on their own.
And the hate… All the hate that comes up again, and again from these white supremacists as the post manifestos and go out and kill.
And here we are again.
The only thing that gave me hope, the only one was the crowd in Dayton shouting at the governor to, “Do Something!”
