On a day when Americans collectively celebrate love, on Valentine’s Day, 17 people, mostly children, lost their lives and their loved ones are now without them. For the survivors of this mass murder in Parkland, Florida, Valentine’s Day will now carry with it the memories of hearts filled with anguish and terror, not simply hearts filled with love. This is too close to home for me. It continues to happen too close to home for all of us, and yet there is no end in sight.
One day, one of my loved ones will be taken from me and I will receive thoughts and prayers and nothing else. One day, one of your loved ones will be taken from you and you will receive thoughts and prayers and nothing else. One day, perhaps I will be slaughtered or you will be slaughtered and our loved ones will receive thoughts and prayers and nothing else. Or, perhaps you have already lost a loved one to senseless gun violence and received thoughts and prayers and nothing else.
We as a nation cannot continue to allow this to be the accepted response to children being slaughtered at school. I am sick of the cowardice of our elected officials. I am sick of the cowardice of our collective political discourse. This is the 40th mass shooting on American soil this year. It is the 45th day of the year. There were 427 mass shootings in 2017 and 477 in 2016. From 2013 until the present, 1,979 mass shootings have occurred on American soil.
These mass shootings have claimed 2,576 lives and injured 7,677 people. That’s 10,253 lives that have been directly affected by mass shootings since 2013 which doesn’t account for the families of the victims who were also traumatized.
Since 2013, we have had 1,979 instances of thoughts and prayers and nothing else.
This has to end at some point, but when?
When will we collectively say enough is enough? When will we begin protecting the lives of innocent people? When will we finally put this chapter in American history behind us?
I am sick of the hypocrisy of our politicians. I listened last night to my governor, Rick Scott, say, “The first thing you ever think about is, ‘God, I hope this never happens to my family.’ Then, you think about, you’re furious. How could this ever happen in this state? This is a state that is focused on keeping our children safe. You come to the conclusion that this is just absolutely pure evil.”
Evil.
Saying that this was an act of evil takes agency away from the young, broken American who planned and executed this heinous mass murder. Whoever this young man was, he was once a baby, free from sin and anguish; the son of a mother and a father. Something went wrong in his life, in his mind, that led him to commit this atrocity. Something went wrong in the lives of all of the broken men who have chosen to act out their most wicked impulses and end the lives of innocent victims.
And every time these heinous mass murders take place, our politicians never want to talk about guns, but rather mental health. Well, where is the urgency to tackle the mental health issues in America today?
The Columbine mass murder occurred when I was still in middle school. We will reach the 20th anniversary of that traumatic event next year and nothing meaningful has been done nationally to address the deterioration we are witnessing in our society. If our politicians are so certain that guns aren’t the problem but rather it is mental illness driving our epidemic of gun violence, then why haven’t we seen the creation of a national program to address the growing mental illness issues in our country?
Why do they continue to send their thoughts and prayers and nothing else?
After listening to my governor speak, my state’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, assured my state that she was working with GoFundMe to ensure no one was going to use this tragedy to crowdfund illegitimately and with local funeral homes so that no one was overcharging victims in their most desperate hour. While I am glad to know that law enforcement is working to stop despicable people from profiting off of this carnage, these were neither my primary, secondary, nor tertiary concerns.
Who is working to stop gun manufacturers from profiting off of this tragedy? Who is working to stop the NRA from fundraising off of this tragedy?
Most importantly, who is working to stop these mass murders from happening again?
Thoughts and prayers.
That’s all the effort our elected officials can muster in the face of these continuing tragedies.
Perhaps we should just start praying it forward. Perhaps we should send our thoughts and prayers to the future for the next 2,500 people who will lose their lives to senseless mass murder over the next five years; because there is no end in sight. Perhaps our thoughts and prayers can be sent to the broken people who will terrorize our nation in the years to come, in an attempt to heal them before it is too late.
We were all raised being told we live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, but I see no bravery from our elected officials. I see a government awash with craven men and women who care first and foremost about their own careers, not the well-being of America. My Senator, Marco Rubio, tweeted that “Today is that terrible day you pray never comes.” I don’t believe my fellow Floridians sent him to Congress to pray on our behalf. I don’t believe my fellow Floridians sent our Representatives to Congress to pray on our behalf.
If thoughts and prayers are all our elected officials can muster, I believe it is time we bring them all home and keep them in our thoughts and prayers as they try to find new careers.
I refuse to allow children to be slaughtered indiscriminately time and time again with no meaningful action being taken. We have a government which is empowered by our Constitution to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” If our elected officials are not willing to faithfully execute their offices, it is our responsibility to replace them with citizens who will.
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