Heartsick and Angry

When will America love their children more than their guns?

I avoided posting yesterday because I knew if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to avoid the vitriolic post that would come out of how I was feeling. The above quote is one that expresses a portion of what I feel in fewer words. While I’ve worked through much of that, it is far from gone so if you want to avoid the spillage that remains, feel free to move on.

When I saw the news about the school shooting in Florida, I was once again horrified at the ugliness that exists in this world and this country. Then I saw, yet again, the idiots that are supposed to be in charge of making sure this kind of stuff doesn’t happen making excuses and pointing fingers as to why it did. I am furious. And heartbroken.

No, this has not impacted me directly and none of the previous horrors have either, but I have children in school. I have sat and listened to them tell me about the drills they have had to run in school in case something like this ever happens to them. I have spent weeks terrified that a bully that tried to burn my child’s arm with a lighter and then ripped into a bus seat with a pocket knife would become one of those angry kids after he got kicked out of school and would come back to try and do this same thing in an act of revenge. I still tense and stress every time the phone rings and it is from the school because he still could. At any time.

I have even, guiltily, been grateful that with all the mess involving OC that violence was never one of his issues because he could be that kid if his personality had veered into that direction instead of the narcissistic route.

I live in an area where many people would rather go down shooting than give up ANY right to ANY gun. One person I have known since very early childhood posted on his FB page what amounts to complaining because people are saying there should be gun control. I know that he is a good guy and he would give the shirt off his back to help someone. I also know that it would probably have to be the “right” someone. That makes me incredibly sad, that his kindness and generosity is tied to prejudice.

Reading news articles and some of the excuses people are making to justify not doing anything  to fix what is a gigantic problem in this country makes me boiling angry because those bullshit excuses put my children in danger.  Why in the fuck does ANYONE think that the right for someone to own OBJECTS, THINGS, weapons of war, not protection, not sporting/hunting, but WAR supersedes the rights of children to feel safe going to school, their very right to LIVE?

I have a harder time going and buying a box of cold medicine than I would buying a gun in places. If it is okay to regulate the hell out of how we travel, how our medicines are packaged and sold, how fast we can drive and so many other things that we have regulated in an effort to preserve life, all things that HAVE made things safer, then why are we not doing the same with guns?

Our kids shouldn’t be forced to go to schools that have better security than a prison, or run live shooter drills. Our teachers shouldn’t be afraid to give a kid a well deserved D or F as a grade because they are worried that student may have access to guns. They also shouldn’t have to seriously think about the possibility that their body may be the only thing between a bullet and a student. They went to school to learn how to teach math or science or art, not to be bodyguards or fight urban warfare. When we give higher priority and protection to those yelling “… but my guns!” over those crying “… but our children!” then there is something very, very wrong in this country.

Call me stupid. Call me naive. Call me whatever but I think my children and anyone living and breathing are more important than your stupid need for quick, easy, unfettered access to the kinds or amount of weapons that only belong in the hands of the military.