Thursday, February 15, 2018

I'd Be Lying

I'd Be Lying
Thursday, February 15, 2018
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I'd be lying if I didn't say that the mass school shooting this week didn't affect me differently than it ever has before. I first got the alert on my phone through FB as some of the news stations in town were picking it up. I login to FB and pull it up on my work computer. I watch the news footage as they don't have the shooter apprehended yet. He was still "at large." My stomach dropped.

It comes out that it is a student, later to be found out he was an ex-student. Shortly thereafter he was taken into custody in a nearby neighborhood. Not even on campus anymore.

As they are showing various footage of the hospitals and outside the school campus, the news stations start interviewing the kids as they are coming out and parents as they are picking up their children after this horrible event.

As a parent I can't even imagine what was going through their minds. Some of them getting texts from their children while at work saying "the school is on lockdown, but I am safe."

Followed by "I'm scared, Mom." or "I love you, Dad."


I hope I never receive a text like that from either of my kids (or anyone I know for that matter). My wish would be that no parent ever has to receive some sort of text like that. I know my Husband went through some version of this with me on October 1st. He also prays that no one has to go through what he went in his position of having a loved one on the other side of this.

The scenes that some of these kids...just KIDS...were describing were the same types of scenes for me at Route 91. Running past bodies, not really knowing if they were dead or alive. So much blood. The sound of gunfire, crying, screaming and yelling. The mixed feelings of being scared and hopeless and then total confusion and shock of what you have just witnessed and went through.

My heart aches for these children and adults alike that had to experience what I experienced. For those people that have experienced it in the past and for those that will experience it in the future because as sad is it is, it will happen again. I never would wish anything like this on anyone.

Not only is it a mass shooting, that in and of itself is scary and heart wrenching, but then on top of that to be at a school.

A parent sent their child off to school that day not knowing that they would never see them again.

A spouse sent their significant other off to work that day not knowing that they would never see them again.

To be honest, you don't have to be a parent and be outraged. You should be outraged no matter what that this keeps happening. They all use the same gun. Literally google the phrase "what gun did the shooter use" and it will be the AR-15. If this is the same gun people keep using over and over again, why has nothing been done? People just throw their hands in the air like it's no big deal.

I just don't get it.

And to be more honest...I'm sick of the "thoughts and prayers" response. I'm sick of the "our nation needs to come together in this time of crisis" response. I'm sick of the "it's too early to talk about guns and gun reform." No. It's not. Because you can't tell me that it's not going to happen again. All I hear when people say that shit is BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I've heard it all before and I will hear it all again. At some point it falls on deaf ears.

Words at this point mean NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING to me.

 And let me tell you...people that are pro gun reform don't want to TAKE AWAY ALL YOUR GUNS and if you think that then get out of your own damn head and into someone else's that has been through this shit firsthand. Have a fucking conversation about it and talk. Don't just revert to the 2nd Amendment and it's my right...BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.



And is this the solution to it all? No. This is just one step in a fucked up system that needs to be changed. But we have to start somewhere. We can't just throw our hands up in the air anymore and "pray" about it and "think" about it and continue to make EXCUSES for NOT DOING ANYTHING.
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