While at work this afternoon, I learned of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas which has now claimed the lives of 19 children and 2 adults. I was alone on an elevator and said, "Enough!!!"
But I know it isn't enough. It has been almost 10 years since 27 people including 20 children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. If that wasn't enough to move Congress to take action the deaths of 19 children in a predominantly Latino community won't do it either.
I say this with the full knowledge that even if federal gun legislation is passed it won't necessarily prevent what happened today from happening again. One can have expanded background checks, but a database is only as good as the information which is entered into it as was the case with the Mother Emanuel Church shooter in Charleston, South Carolina.
Whatever the shortcomings of gun control legislation there is something terribly wrong when a country accepts the killing of schoolchildren as a fact of life. Or accept the killing of people who exercise their religious freedom, or accept the killing of those who attend a movie or a concert or accept the killing of people merely buying food at a grocery store as happened in Buffalo a mere 10 days ago.
None of what I have described happens with any regularity in any other advanced industrialized democracy. Not Canada, not the U.K., not France, not Italy, not Australia. This is unique to the United States.
As President Biden asked the nation tonight, "Why are we willing to live with this carnage?" The simple answer is the same reason why we are willing to live with 1 million deaths from COVID. Too many of us care only for ourselves and have no regard for the lives of others.
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