— by Lin McNulty —
Merely waiting for this latest horror to pass is just not enough. In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida our hearts and minds want to reach out, to make sense of this and all the other recent incidents involving the taking of innocent lives.
Yet, what is the answer? What is the response that will stop this horror? There is no one answer. At times it may feel that there is no appropriate response at all. This feeling of being out-of-control is overwhelming.
Google search trends indicate a rise in concern when we learn of a new shooting. “Gun control” is among the top search queries. Google trends also indicate that the interest, within a short time, quickly tapers off, to spike again with the next event.
Democrats in the House of Representatives caused a stir yesterday when they refused to participate in yet another “moment of silence” to honor the slain. It seems as though offering up our hearts and prayers is the only method by which we can cope. And what better way to perpetuate this than with silence?
We wait for someone else to do a study, to find that one causal grain. Just give us the foundation, and then the blessed cure. Please just explain it to us.
Who of us does not want an answer, a solution, a plan of action to stop this madness? Yet, if we cannot turn our feelings of helplessness into action, it is not going to stop. Aye! Is that the rub?
Spot on
Thans again Lin,
This is not a time to remain quiet,we all have something we can contribute and one never knows what can happen next again all we have is now let US then with awareness move forward.
respectfully yours,
scott gianola
Why do we hesitate to call these shootings what they actually are? The shooter in Orlando was eager to call it what it was. He made three phone calls during the event to state clearly what this was. It was not a random shooting or workplace violence. It was JIHAD. I don’t know how many times one individual had to reload his weapons to shoot over 100 people, some multiple times, and take time out to make three phone calls. If we had an armed citizenry, or at least armed security guards, someone might have found a way to stop this before it became such a massive loss. Gun control will not protect the law abiding citizen. It will remove his ability to protect himself. Gun control will not apply at all to criminals and terrorists. They have their own separate means of obtaining weapons of all sorts. Including weapons created for military use only. Our government is pushing to make it more and more difficult for honest citizens to be able to defend themselves. It is doing nothing to stop the people we need to defend ourselves from.
It is not time to cower and wait for the next time. It is time to stand up for ourselves and urge our government to call these acts of terror what they really are. We should speak out for terror prevention. We should not sit by quietly and allow ourselves to be disarmed. If we do nothing, the frequency and size of mass terror attacks will continue until we are destroyed.
Perhaps a local fun raising effort is in order so that we too can buy our own politicians. We’re a small community so we should set modest goals, say two or three members of the House; shouldn’t cost more that $25,000 or so. If a few of our more well healed community members contributes maybe we can set a stretch goal of buying our own senator or two.
Once we have our own members of Congress then we can start getting our view point heard. That might inspire other small communities to copy our model and buy their own members of Congress. Ultimately it will come down to how much money either side of the issue has. If we can afford to buy enough members of Congress then perhaps we can get some meaningful changes, like, say, reducing the maximum legal magazine capacity to only 30 rounds instead of unlimited. Yup, with enough money we can really start to get some changes made.