May 23, 2018
Little Mommy always encouraged us to think. We spent time as a family talking about issues at the dinner table. We were expected to participate. Since we were not allowed to leave the table until we ate all our vegetables, Little Mommy served Brussels sprouts at least once a week. Because Brussels sprouts SUCK, and everyone HATES THEM. So, Little Mommy served them at dinner. So we would linger. And talk. And listen. And think. And grow consciences.
The tradition continues.
Tonight at dinner, my daughter, only a year removed from being a high school student in America, expressed how it feels to be living in a country where gun rights are more important than the lives of students who cannot yet vote. “I was born in this country and have lived here all my life,” she said, “but it doesn’t feel like a country that values my life.”
Wow.
We told her to blog, to get involved, to connect with Parkland students. We told her to get active, to get out the vote.
We hope she will.
But, hey, all Americans who don’t have to walk into a United States school…guess what? This is what it feels like to be a young adult in the USA. Gun violence? Active shooter? It could happen any day. It could happen tomorrow, in any school, anywhere. It probably will. These are YOUR KIDS. This is their reality. Every. Single. Day.
If we adults thought there was a chance that we’d be shot at just for entering our workplace each morning, we wouldn’t tolerate it. Things would change. We’d elect different leaders.
If an armed gunman could walk into the chambers of Congress, do you think our lawmakers would have a second thought about whether the Second Amendment should be the sacred cow to which there can be no reasonable or legitimate opposition? From the Latin…NFW.
These children who have become cannon fodder for the NRA can’t vote. Until they’re on the verge of graduation, they have no voice. So they live in a world where they have to go someplace, every day, because it’s the law, and hope they don’t get shot at.
“Why are guns more important than the lives of people who can’t even vote?” my daughter asked, in tears.
I had no answers.
When guns are more important than lives, we have become a morally bankrupt society.
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