Analysis, Commentary, National, Opinion, Park Forest, Politics, Schools

All Bets Are Off: Federal Gun Control Now


school mass shooting uvalde texas, all bets are off
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Park Forest, IL-(ENEWSPF)- All bets are off. As of this writing, 18 children and 3 adults are dead in a Texas mass shooting.

18 children, 3 adults dead.

I got to be 59 today. I complained about some little things in my life today. But I had a life today, uninterrupted. I get to sit here right now listening to music from my most-recent favorite show. I got to relax this afternoon with colleagues as we celebrated the end of the school year, our friendships together, and those, sadly, who are moving on to other positions in other schools.

All in all, I had a pretty good day.

And then I checked the news after I saw my Facebook feed. Another mass shooting, ten days after the last. This in another school, a grade school. Babies dead. Little ones. Children. And three adults.

So far.

All allegedly by an 18-year-old shooter, a teen, a child himself — and an American citizen, for those who will Google for an explanation after hearing his name.

Enough sitting around and doing nothing. Enough silence after the GOP and the NRA tell us it’s “too soon,” and, “out of respect for those killed,” we should wait, settle down, not politicize this senseless tragedy.

After all, how could anyone have foreseen such a horrific event? No one can prevent these things. If only there had been a good person in that school with a gun, that good person with a gun would have stopped this armed teenager.

Bullshit.

Bullshit.

Bullshit.

Enough is enough.

David Hogg at Rally to Support Firearm Safety, Fort Lauderdale
David Hogg at the Rally to Support Firearm Safety Legislation in Fort Lauderdale, February 17, 2018. By Barry Stock [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I had previously been in touch with David Hogg, back in December. Mr. Hogg you may recall is a survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting where 17 died. Told David that I was on board to write, advocate for gun control. But my day job, teaching, kept happening. As it should.

I don’t want my days in the classroom interrupted as David’s days were in 2018, as the days of the children in Uvalde, Texas were today.

So, I emailed David and made another promise, told him, “With your permission, I’m going to [use] your tweets to keep writing op-eds on gun control. Will also quote you, cite you, but I need to write and keep writing. Told you I would but my day job… Enough. I’m sorry. Enough.”

“Yeah run with it,” he replied.

Didn’t need to use David’s tweets today. I just ran with it.

Let’s all run with it.

We marched for our lives en masse in 2018.

We need to march again. We need to run.

So far 21 are dead in Texas today.

So far this year there have been 213 mass shootings in America.

Yes, there are those who track that.

213 mass shootings so far this year in America.

As of this writing, there are 222 days left in 2022.

That makes this day 143.

There have been more mass shootings in the United States than there have been days in the year so far.

So far.

I got to be 59 today.

18 children in Texas will never see that number.

All bets are off.

Enough is enough.

We need federal gun control legislation now.

Now.

Support March for Our Lives.

Support Sandy Hook Promise.

Call your elected officials. Write.

March.

And run.

#ENOUGHISENOUGH

Here are all the mass shootings thus far this year, 2022, United States, tracked by the Gun Violence Archive.

Read them and weep.

Weep some more.

And then act.

Gary Kopycinski is the editor and publisher of eNews Park Forest.


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