Each week on my other blog I end the week with a post titled Reality Reflection. These posts are on a wide variety of topics, not just faith and victories like the other posts I share on that blog, and sometimes they are a little harder hitting and deal with not only the realities but the tragedies of life. Whatever the topic of the post is, it's a reflection on something that happened or is going on in the world or is something we might experience in the world. Not only is the post a challenge to myself to see the world in different ways, it's an invitation for my subscribers to do the same. This week I'm bringing that post to this blog for a good reason, based on an insight I had in response to some of this weeks' tragic events (Content Warning: yes, this post touches on some tough topics like guns, death, violence and mental health).
As part of the conversations we have about families especially on this blog we've talked about tragedies in the past like the tragic school shooting in Connecticut, the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, and several times we've talked about 9/11, as well as talked about the ups and downs of life and business and how what goes on in the world affects us. This week families in Texas lost loved ones, mostly children, because of an illogical decision of a young man to take a gun and go shooting in an elementary school. In the days that followed a school near me had a bomb threat, which I heard about because I know some of the children who attend. As I was reeling from that and the news in Texas it took me back to being a young teen and being part of the Columbine generation, one of the kids who was in school when this tragedy shook the US (unfortunately it was not the first school shooting, there have been over a dozen that preceded it in recorded US history).
Of course in the days since this shooting, and all the other mass shootings that have happened, there's a lot of talk about guns and how either we're too restrictive and people don't get their Second Amendment rights, or we're not doing enough to curb access. While I do support the rights outlined in the Second Amendment for most people, I don't agree that someone who has a history of violent acts (with weapons or without but have a history of threats that are acted upon) or has documented mental health challenges has the right to continue to do violence or have access to tools of mass destruction that they may not be able to understand the impact of. So yes, I do think there are some things that we can do to curb the violence from happening in the future so that other families don't go though similar experiences.
But that's not the point I want to make today. The realization I came to this week in thinking about these events is that when we don't do something, which we really haven't, we send a very clear message to kids (and honestly adults too) that it's OK to go ahead and get these (accessible) guns and act on their unhappiness, frustration, hurt or whatever else drives them to take this path. I'm extremely thankful of the progress we've made in giving women and people of color and the Indigenous community rights, in making it OK to be honest and passionate about your sexual orientation, in bringing the family and relationship violence to light, and in being honest about mental health struggles and the desire to get help for them. We've come a really long way from where we were 100 years ago on so many things. And yet, people still think that it's OK to grab a gun and go do violence. How many times have we warned our kids about "stranger danger," yet when it comes to guns and school shootings, we're too busy fighting among ourselves to do or say anything?
Yes, there will always be tragedies and many situations will be at least somewhat preventable because of measures or practices we put into place. But there will be fewer needs for such measures if we raise the next generation up to know that violence is not the answer, guns are to be used only for war and protection when all other options have failed, all sexual orientations and skin colors are to be celebrated and welcomed, and it's OK to admit that you're not feeling OK and you need help. It's not OK that another group of families is grieving this week, and it's not OK that another teen used a gun to share their feelings or make their point. Can we can turn the tide and disagree less if we focus on the issue from an education and acceptance perspective? Since we clearly have been so unsuccessful with the way we've gone about it thus far, I think it's worth a try.
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