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| photo via We Resist, Facebook. |
I try to stay in my lane as best as I can. I am passionate and strong willed, though, and so that comes as a bit of a challenge to me. I get into Twitter fights with strangers, Facebook quarrels with family members. I debate with family, talk with friends. Everything ends with that "okay, that's your opinion and I respect that" sort of vibe. We move on with our lives. But this. I can't sit on my hands any longer. I can't bite my tongue.
Let me say it again just in case you might have forgotten.
EIGHTEEN SCHOOL SHOOTINGS IN 2018 AS OF FEBRUARY 14TH.
When will it be enough? How many teachers have to die? How many children do we have to lose? How many parents need to grieve? When is it ENOUGH?
I am so pained and heartbroken. The first school shooting that I vividly remember is the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012. I was eleven years old. I saw the big words scrawling across the screen on CNN; BREAKING NEWS. I didn't know what it meant. I mean, sure. I could piece it together. A school. An elementary school. A shooting. Someone had gone in to shoot someone with their gun. Okay. I watched. Twenty eight people, dead. Gone. Children, for crying out loud! They would never get to see their parents again.
I had never seen anything as scary as that. Surely, that was just a one time thing. And then, I grew up. My eyes opened. I saw, and continue to see, all of the scary things that go on in the world daily. There have been nearly 300 school shootings since 2013 ALONE!!!!
Every time there is a mass shooting of some sort, we come back to this one political hot topic. To gun control or to not gun control? That is the question. We are always talking, but no one is listening. And why is that? Why are our voices not being heard? Are the deceased LGBT club goers not enough? Are the injured school children not enough?
I am not here to tell you what your political standing on this particular topic should be. I am just simply stating that it starts somewhere. It starts with someone. It can end with someone, too.
Scott Beigel.
Alyssa Alhadeff.
Martin Duque Anguiano.
Nicholas Dworet.
Aaron Feis.
Jaime Guttenberg.
Christopher Hixon.
Luke Hoyer.
Cara Loughran.
Gina Montalto.
Joaquin Oliver.
Alaina Petty.
Meadow Pollack.
Helena Ramsay.
Alex Schachter.
Carmen Schentrup.
Peter Wang.
My heart goes out to the families. Those that lost brothers, sisters, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, fathers. Your loved ones are sparks and we will not stop until those sparks are a fire of justice.
XOXO
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