Enough!

“Just heard the shocking news” opened my last blog about my friend Sue Walton, but that was nothing compared to the latest school killings. What can one say? Amidst the grief and heaviness of the horror, so many of my teacher friends on Facebook are talking about how they continue to fill their school with love, love and yet more love. And music. What else can one do but weep and keep going on with yet more love and compassion?

Amidst the tears, after the shock settles, may I suggest a next step? Bring down the f’—ing NRA’s stranglehold on gun control. Stop listening to the insanity of “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Well, yes, but people with guns kill more people more easily that someone with bare hands, a knife or a baseball bat and that child spared might have been your own. How many more school tragedies will it take before we wake up? Columbine was not an isolated event—it’s becoming a national pattern. We’ve had the statistics at our fingertips forever, comparing the actual murder rates of countries with gun control and those without. The difference is staggering.

Let us honor these innocent children and their inconsolable families by protecting our young as we should. It’s time for serious gun control, side by side with love, love and yet more love.