Dear Elected Officials,
Today is Ash Wednesday in the Christian calendar and also Valentine’s Day. It is a day to celebrate renewal, rebirth, and love. The perfect confluence of holiday and holy day.
And yet, here we are, once again shocked and bewildered by a mass shooting in a U.S. high school. We are listening to horrific accounts of students scattering to escape gunfire; hearing parents’ fear as they talk of receiving panicked texts from their children; watching the post-shooting press conferences as law enforcement officials talk of casualties. Here we are. Again.
And there you are, sitting on the floor of the House and the Senate, collecting your donations from corporations and organizations promoting their agendas. Lining your pockets with blood money. Living out your days of public service in affluence at the expense of our most vulnerable—our children—while you refuse to consider that the real problem with our county might just be a government that is sponsored by corporate interests.
Senator Chris Murphy stood on the floor of the senate, visibly shaken by the most recent news, and delivered a brief message before he moved on to business. He said you are all responsible, but then he ended with the statement, “We will hope for the best.” What?
Seventeen more lives lost, and you are going to “hope for the best”? Seventeen young people who will not make their contributions to the world. Seventeen what ifs. These were young people with their entire lives ahead of them, young people with great promise. They were everything to their families, just as your children are everything to yours.
Perhaps one of these students was to be the brilliant mind to find a cure for the very cancer that could now take the life of your grandchild. Another of the victims would promote an innovative and workable idea to create lasting peace in the most intensely war torn regions of the world. One could have developed a system to recycle and purify the Earth’s dwindling water supply. And another would figure out a way to reverse brain damage.
We will never know what might have been. We will never see what these young people might have contributed to our society. Because they didn’t make it to their high school graduation.
Yes, Mr. Murphy, you and your colleagues are responsible. You cannot “hope for the best” while you sit on the senate floor and do nothing. In this case, “hope” is not an action verb. “Hope for the best” all you want, Mr. Murphy, but hope without action is for cowards.
It’s time, Senators and Congressmen, to take on the work of the people who elected you to office. It’s time to protect the right to life of the children already born. Risk the disdain of those around you and take some action. If you step out of your comfort zone and do rather than hope, you might just change the trajectory of our society.
{photo used with permission of my talented daughter}
Positively Un-broken 
Ever since the Sandy Hook shooting which happened twenty minutes from where I live I’ve been committed to do whatever I can to help change the gun laws. Chris Murphy is actually one of the good guys when it comes to gun control. He’s the one that filibustered for hours and hours for change and still- nothing. It’s the other fools in Congress that need to step up and change the laws. I wrote a piece for the Enough Campaign that shares just how true your sentence about lining their pockets is. $30 million dollars. That’s how much money Wayne LaPierre of the NRA paid toward Trump’s campaign. We need new congress people. I’m with you, it’s devastating and laws must change. Thanks for writing this.
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I wrote this post, and I could not come back to it. The week plus since the shooting has been both uplifting in the words and actions of the teens who have marched forward with great determination, and so deflating as we listen to continued political rhetoric. I can only hope that enough companies will sever ties with the NRA that things will begin to change. What we need is to get all corporate donations out of politics where they never belonged to begin with.
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YES, it’s time for action!!!!! Everyday…it’s another finding, a new development….another tragic event! The news is discussed on all of the networks, but there is no action being taken to put a stop to the madness!!!!!! 😦
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We can only hope that the momentum brought by these children will continue and become the tidal wave that effects all sorts of change. 😉
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Fingers crossed…praying, too!!!!! 🙂
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Very powerful post, thank you. Sadly schools, to be prepared, go through exercises such as; Active Shooter and Lockdowns. Senators and members of the house of representatives complain about our schools and how our students are ill prepared for college, etc. Time to focus and act on having our children feel comfortable walking into school first!
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For many children, school is the only place they have where they feel marginally safe. I don’t think that arming teachers and staff is going to help. My colleagues and I were discussing how easy it would be for a strong, determined student to overpower a small teacher/staff to acquire a concealed weapon.
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