Ah, we’ve done it again. 19 this time. 19.
This time, once again, it’s children. Not shoppers, not Black churchgoers. But children in schools. Our national specialty. 17 in Parkland. 26 in Sandy Hook. Now 19 in Texas. And counting. This is our true American exceptionalism — we know how to kill children in schools.
Little children, full of hope, collecting their school papers, ready to run home and show them to their mothers. Teenagers, worried about boyfriends and girlfriends, planning for the football game, wondering about the prom. Teachers, working too hard for too little pay, going home exhausted but coming back the next day because they love their students and want to make a difference.
Killed by a gunman – or more accurately, a gun in the hands of a man — all of them — dying in terror, pleading for their lives, lying in pools of their own blood as it runs slowly together with the blood of the others, while we stand aside and offer “thoughts and prayers”.
And what of the children not killed in these mass shootings? What of the ones who are only splattered with blood and terror, and left scarred and fearful for the rest of their lives?
What do we know of what has truly happened to them?
We do not close our eyes and see the blood-soaked body of our little brother or our best friend. We do not see their face shot off or hear their sobbing or gurgling as the blood flows from their mouth or wound while they twitch on the floor gasping and moaning until they finally expire. We don’t wake in the night, screaming from the recurring nightmare of the killer’s return.
But the survivors do.
What shall we tell them as they struggle with sights they can’t unsee and wounds too deep to heal?
Should we tell them to focus on the good in people and try to put the horror behind them?
Should we ask them to join us while we hold candle light vigils and sing soft songs about peace? Or have them write their names and messages of condolence on rolls of butcher paper that we send to another school where children were slain?
Is this the best we can do while this disease of gun lust flows across the land?
Well, I for one am sick of this.
I’m sick of listening as people who wouldn’t know the Constitution from a phone book wrap themselves in the second amendment when they couldn’t tell me the first or the third of any of the other 26.
I’m sick of their fallacious and deranged arguments about how cars kill people so why don’t we ban cars? Or how obesity kills people, so why don’t we ban knives and forks?
I’m sick of hearing that guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
I’m sick of it all.
Most of all I’m sick of the cowardly and craven politicians who refuse to raise a hand to stop this death and carnage.
Who are these people who once were our neighbors and friends? What happened to them? Did getting elected to office cause them to lose their souls? Is their job so important to them that they will give up all principles and human compassion so long as the child killed isn’t their own?
Somehow they have turned from friends and neighbors to moral zombies, because by their inaction from their positions of power they are setting the stage for the next twisted young man with too easy access to a gun to don a flack jacket and face paint and go off into a school or shopping center to shoot moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and little children sitting at their desks
Even as you read this that person is out there. He’s cleaning his assault rifle and assembling his arsenal of hollow tipped bullets bought over the internet in preparation for the great moment when he will push open the door of the school or the shopping center or the church or the daycare center where your children are playing with dolls and toy trucks, and will open fire, intent upon redressing perceived grievances by killing as many people as he can. And your friend, or your colleague, or your child — or you — will die.
How long will you stand for this? How long will you wring your hands and tally body counts and shake your head and say, “What has become of us?”
It is time to call the moral zombies we have elected to office to account.
Make it simple. Look your politicians in the eye and ask, “Which is more important to you, gun rights or gun control?” If they say “gun rights” or prevaricate or blow a fog of evasive language in your direction, kick the dust from your feet and walk away.
By their inaction they are helping that next shooter load his gun. And the bullet that he is putting in the chamber already has a name on it. It may be your daughter’s. Or your grandchild’s.
Our only power is to take away their power. It’s time to vote these craven cowards out of office.
Kent, pls send this to the Star Tribune. Its power is beyond words.
Thank you Kent – I feel heart broken, outraged, sick and I don’t know what to do except rage and vote to remove the self-centered, heartless excuses for human beings that are running our country – I have 2 children and 3 grandchildren that are teachers and I fear for their futures and the futures of all children
Amen – again and again, sadly.
God Bless You, Kent. I forgive you for making this grown man cry.
I get so angry at do-nothing Republicans I get lacrimal constipation.
Holding up background/mental health checks, gun restrictions etc, is criminal.
We have a right to bear arms, but high capacity magazines and assault rifles?!
Padding GOP pockets with NRA donations is more important.
And they call themselves Christian believing they’re saving babies.
Why aren’t they helping schools to intervene and stop the bullying and harassment?
Signs at the zoo say, “Don’t Tease The Animals,” for good reason. Same for us.
Thanks, Kent. You speak for our hearts, minds and souls.
We have become our own worst enemy.
Thank you Senator McConnell and fellow zombies. You have once again paved the way for a murderer to kill young children and teachers, grocery shoppers and police, destroying their families forever.I’m sure your prepared statements of hearts and prayers have already gone out as you wait in silent shame for the next mass killing. Your greed and silence is a boon to the killers; they know they can count on you to do nothing.
How do you speak to your own children, grandchildren or great grandchildren? Can you still face them? Can they still face you?
It is so sad to see that the senators who block each and every attempt to regulate the gun laws just a little bit – refuse to do so.
How can the board members of the NRA sleep? How can senators support the NRA and at the same time taking away the right of a woman’s choice, because “we” are pro-life?
A Dylan song (Masters of War) came into my mind. I just changed a few words. I address it to the senators who refuse to do anything and some of the Fox comentators who know better, but play a deadly game with their audience:
Let me ask you one question
Is your POWER (money) that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the POWER (money) you HAD (made)
Will never buy back your soul
Aye. We are all accountable.
Amen Kent. Thank you. The blood of these children and teachers and black shoppers in Buffalo and on an on is on the hands of every congressman/woman and senator who has voted against gun control legislation. VOTE THEM OUT. We do have the power to change this.
Uvalde, Texas wasn’t apart of my vocabulary until May 24th. The terrible school grounds killing there of 22 elementary schoolchildren and wounding of 17 others including, the shooter’s grandmother, three teachers, and several law enforcement officers is currently foremost on everyone’s mind — until the next one. According to the statistic listing of mass shooting events so far in 2022, Uvalde Texas is the most recent since January 1.
I found this site: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting and started listing the incidents one by one on my keyboard, designating the repeated city mass shootings in italics, magenta, bold face, and incidents number; had I simply viewed the pages, or copied and pasted the listing, the gravity of their existence would not have affected me such as it did.
By typing each city, each state, one by one, I began to grasp the sight-robbing pandemic affecting us as an airborne pathogen of fear and ignorance. I urge that with each convening of county, state, federal, and tribal meeting of elected officials from this day forward, this list of mass shootings and murders nationwide, be read out loud, to drive home the human tragedy needing to be addressed before business as usual begins, similar to the Pledge of Allegiance.
The fact that gun ownership is too much a part of our American DNA bears repeating; it’s a revered constitutional right that speaks to the fearful in our country who feel vulnerable against personal invasion, however they wish to skew it; we can’t change that. The public’s pleading to our elected officials to morally act and pass gun control laws, I think, is a waste of time given the protection of their terms of service, something that a Parliamentary system can affect by the instituting a of No Confidence Vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence that, in my estimation would cut the slackers out if they didn’t adhere to the policies at hand. Hold them accountable or get rid of them faster; get people in there quickly that want to see the job done before another child is wontonly murdered in front of our eyes.
Please send this to ALL politicians….it is true and raw ….
Thank you, Kent Nerburn
Thank you Kent……thoughts, prayers etc……I and a collective WE are sick to death of the carnage in our country…..American exceptionalism BS call it what it is….American greed ….MAGA is just more BS…..a tired, frustrated and angry grandmother.
God help us.
Living in the Netherlands, and watching what is going on in the USA, another shooting, I can’t understand why people feeling “save”, if nearly everyone is allowed to carry a gun. And that it’s a right to have one.
I am really sad and pray for all the innocent victims and their families. Thank you Kent for your statement.
Definitely send this to as many newspapers as possible as Letter to the Editor. Powerfully and succinctly rendered. Thank you.
I am so sad for your country.
We are allowing our children to be slaughtered. Why? We have a history of this. What will it take to wake us up? We are not powerless, we have given our power to the wrong leaders. May we as a community listen, really listen, and then do what we are guided to do in compassion and courage. Thank you.
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