A Nation in Mourning

My heart is broken by the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. The loss of human life incurred and the number of families affected is too much to fully imagine. This tragedy has captured the attention of everyone nationwide as we all mourn the many loved ones lost and the heroes of the day who did what they could to keep others safe. 

Americans are crying out for help and change. These tragedies cannot keep happening at the rate they are. There is so much that is preventable in these killings and brutalities. People argue that wanting change and starting the conversation about gun control around these tragedies is "politicizing" these events. On the contrary, it is people desperate for change. It is people who don't want to live in fear anymore, who don't want to see America turn into a place of fear, anarchy, and death. It has become a risk we assume, by going out in public, that there is an opportunity for violence. This is something unique to America--and it goes back to our value system. America's system values individual freedoms over community freedoms, ie, the right for an individual to buy weapons, but not the right for communities to feel safe in public spaces. It is unfathomable in other countries that we do not take action, and it is, though devastating, just something that happens here. OUR LAWS ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO BUY DEADLY WEAPONS IN REGULAR STORES. For many of us who have grown up here, maybe we've grown up thinking that is normal. I challenge you to really think about it. WHY ON EARTH SHOULD A CIVILIAN INDIVIDUAL BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO WEAPONRY SIMILAR TO WHAT IS USED BY THE MILITARY? Without guns, yes violence would still happen, but mass murders in school would be largely stopped. Mass murders of any kind--stopped. If there were no guns, legally or not, we would see a dramatic decline in murder. There is a larger conversation that needs to happen, around media and violence in our entertainment, the way human life is discounted in video games, movies, and tv shows, things our youth grow up watching, people without memorable names and faces being killed with little emotion. To shift our perception of human life to something of higher value is needed, as well, but the very simple fact of it all is that eliminating guns from stores would prevent the actual deaths we are currently seeing. This does not happen in other places. 

As you might notice, I am desperate. I am crying out for change. I beg everyone to consider what freedom means to them and take action. Freedom is the right to live without fear, it is the right to enjoy entertainment in public, to go out in crowds, to send your children to school. Freedom is the right to health and happiness for ALL. Freedom is not having to go through metal detectors and be searched upon entering airports, government buildings, and now schools. That is the direction our country is going. 

"If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be

 working feverishly to contain it.

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late."
- Ezra Klein 

Take action in your own life: make a conscious decision to not say hurtful or negative things to others. Build others up, love with all your power. This is what will change the world and affect peace. 

 Support the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence to start getting involved in the conversation.  We must save America. It is that serious...this country is at stake. Life as we know it, the American dream, all of it, at stake. 

Pray for those affected by this horrible event, and take action in remembrance of them. It's not political, it's about prevention and honoring lives lost, may they not be lost in vain. 

--megan