Save our Children.
Doesn’t’ seem like it’d be necessary to write these words. Doesn’t seem like it’d be necessary to create a “Humanitarian Case for Support” that urges people to take action as hundreds of children are slaughtered. Doesn’t seem like it’d be necessary to increase the “urgency” of the problem. Doesn’t seem like it’d be necessary that three weeks in a row our nation is confronted with unimaginable violence.
And yet, here. WE. are.
When staff come to my office and ask me, “do you think I should quit working and homeschool my kids because I’ll know I’ll see them at the end of the day?” Or when a mom tells me her daughter wakes up with nightmares of school lockdown drills. How ‘bout when a teacher tells me she decided to change shoes as she’s leaving home because the heels she had on weren’t good for running!
sit. with. that. – a professional educator is considering shoe choice based on the ability to run – to live – to see her family – and make it through the day☹
When will it Stop?
21, 57, 63
Those are the numbers of the last three Texas Mass Shootings.
Since Sandy Hook, the nation has suffered more than 3,500 mass shootings, and lawmakers have excused them by claiming they didn’t actually happen, or by insisting we need more guns so there will be “a good guy with a gun” to take out a shooter, or that we need to “harden targets,” or that we need more police in the schools (which has simply led to more student arrests).
Apparently those numbers are not enough to convince 50 elected senators to sign HR 8 – the universal background check bill passed by the house. 90% of Americans are in favor, regardless of political affiliation.
What will it take?
In 2004, a ten-year federal ban on assault weapons expired, and since then. Mass shootings have tripled. Zusha Elinson, who is writing a history of the bestselling AR-15 military style weapon used in many mass shootings, notes that there were about 400,000 AR-15 style rifles in America before the assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994. Today, there are 20 million!
When will it Stop?
SAVE. OUR. CHILDREN!