Never before have I felt so frustrated, and I feel like I need to scream. (At something other than my television.)
I'm an old phart, not big at all on social media, but I live in Roswell, N.M., and today we became known for something other than aliens.
Another school shooting.
So I'm hoping I can vent just a bit of frustration at this site, which I visit daily to get a little bit of progressive thought.
My rant below the orange squiggly.
I am 1,000 percent anti-gun, so today (and probably for the next week, month or longer), I am going to have to bite my tongue as I go about my business in this small-town, heavily conservative community.
Two middle school students were shot today at a school I know very well.
I have covered numerous sporting events in the gym where the shooting happened; know the teacher/coach who is being portrayed as a "hero;" know the school principal; many of the students; and many of the city and county officials who stood behind the podium looking grim during Tuesday's press conferences.
But while I feel sad for the students who were shot — this did not have to happen — I feel more anger than sadness as everyone from parents to television crews ask why the shooting happened? The god-fearing people of this community get down on their knees and pray for answers, and the reporters ask the why question again and again, but no one really wants the answer.
Because it's simple.
There are too many guns in this wild-west country, and until something is done about the ability of anyone and everyone to get his/her/its hands on a weapon of mass destruction, we will continue to see people of all ages be injured and die every day.
I am not going to go into all the statistics of how we are one of the most dangerous countries in the world (I simply need to vent, and the stats are out there) but as I watched the news reports rehash the story over and over, I had no emotions left which which to mourn.
I am so inured to stories like this, I no longer feel anything, even when it happens in the town in which I live, to people I almost certainly know. All I kept thinking, as I heard them ask "why" again and again and again, was, "Because most of you asking have one or more guns in your houses. Use the brains you claim god gave you and connect the dots."