Here I am again, and I’m swimming in this soup of news, social media and emotion that I just can’t get away from, and it’s exhausting. I make some off the cuff remarks from time to time on social media, and in the comfort of this blog, but I make it very easy to differentiate between what I think is funny and what I believe. There is nothing but fear and sorrow, anger and politics when it comes to mass shootings. Fear, because I have family in the teaching field. Sorrow because so many families have bedrooms that will be turned into shrines now. Anger because I know that the next shooting is coming soon, and our leaders refuse to address the blood being shed by our troubled youth, and it desperately needs to be addressed. Politics because I know that there is an immediate fix to the problem of angry bloodthirsty youth that have assigned no value to the lives of others, but nothing is ever done. Much talk and little action, and I have to wonder why. One side will say that it’s the gun and the other side will say that it’s mental illness, and another will say that it’s one thing or another, and all the while the very next killer could be living in your town. This has been going on way too long and we have got to get off our asses and move.

We owe our children safety. I’ve watched social media over the past week and I’ve read all the expert advice, and I wonder if anybody has taken the time to ask teachers what they think would make them safe right now. Not five years from now and not next year… What can we do for you right now… while each side tosses this political football around with the promise that nothing will be done anytime soon. Let me ask that very question in a slightly different way…

You are a teacher in a small school out in the county and it’s Friday morning. You are already looking forward to the weekend and you hear what you believe to be gunfire… just down the hallway. What is the one thing that will give you a fighting chance to save your children and many others? The county sheriff won’t be there for fifteen minutes.

You know in your heart what the answer is. Now let me ask the question this way…

Your child is in that classroom and it’s the same situation. What will save your child?

I am telling you now that nothing will stop a bad guy with a gun except a good guy with a gun… It’s why you called the sheriff. You already know it. All this other talk is bullshit and it’s time to have that come to Jesus moment. We owe our children safety. We owe them that. We can talk about mental health, and we can argue about guns and on and on and on. Meanwhile, there is an angry kid out there, right now, probably white, and he is going to kill more of our babies, because we can’t shoot him down.

Fix this problem and then we can work on figuring out how we got here, and how we can change the road that we are on.

ws