On Saturday the US will sadly celebrate the first anniversary of the Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. 6 adults gunned down. 20 children, all in first grade, killed. Can you imagine leaving your child in the morning in school, a safe place, and hearing later on that they were killed in such a scary and gruesome fashion? There are no words.
Since then the US hasn't made any progress to either deal with gun violence of finding better ways to treat people with serious mental health issues. People who love their guns cling to the idea that they need to protect themselves and people who don't like government-led healthcare cling to the idea that they shouldn't pay for something that is not affecting them. And once again, I see something that is really disturbing: we'd rather deal with symptoms, with consequences, than do the hard work of finding causes for issues and dealing with those. So instead of working on the cause of gun violence (poverty, availability of arms) people buy more guns to protect themselves in case they're attacked. Instead of working on the cause of mental illnesses, whatever they are, we load people with medications that may effectively help in some cases, but might leave people even more lonely and dangerous in other cases. And mind you, I see this too in my work: we deal with AIDS by telling donors we are working with orphans and widows (well I know we're actually working HARD to decrease maternal transmission of the virus and teaching people about safe sex. I'm mostly talking about what people care about, what they give money to), we get money when we talk about trafficking rescues, not when when we talk about prevention. It's always the same: dealing with consequences -with the symptoms of the issue- instead of taking time to examine the root cause of issues and actually decreasing the issue in the first place.
So as we talk about Newton, I know that we will weep and grieve... and go back to our ways of thinking. I'll hug my baby closer. Some people will hug their rifle closer. Sad, sad world.
1 comment:
Oh friend, this has been on my mind this week too. And what especially PISSES me off (excuse me), is that the moment anyone brings it up or mentions it, someone needs to get on their high horse about maintaining THEIR right to bear arms. Like "hey, a bunch of kids got shot but I have my right to have my guns in my house!" Especially some of my Facebook friends. I pray none of them ever lose a child, but I hope they will learn to understand that someone killed by gun violence deserves sympathy, and an collective effort to change our system. Not just cling to some antiquated unnecessary "right". AHHH. [sorry, this was your blog post]
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