It is not soon enough

Still difficult to type so I wanted to be succinct enough to put this thought on Twitter, yet alas

And I do not know how to start except to say: 

You cannot legislate morality because a determined person will find a way; doesn’t matter if anti abortion laws or gun reform or whatever, whether evil, stupid, mental health etc... is the root cause, the determined person will find a way.

So what is the answer, as you guessed there is no one answer, yet some of the most quaint ideas or ideas people do not think much of have the beginnings of what we should do. This by no means will solve the problem, but offers us a start of the self reflection we need as a society.

And it starts with family and community. Remember back in the day when people were told to turn off the TV when the family had dinner? Remember people talked about walking around the block as a family. And people go...how quaint, but we cannot do that now.

Why not? 

How many Dads and Moms are answering work emails in the evening? Or working on projects? Why are we so stressed running to the store at 9pm for science fair materials?

Why is it we spend a fortune on a kindergarten graduation? 

What on God’s green earth are our priorities?

Sure you can come up with some laws that might affect a problem, but until you understand the depth of the problem, the answers are like sticking one band aid on twenty cuts. Yeah the bleeding on the one cut is stopped and technically that is good, but what caused the twenty cuts? Will more happen?

We are at the point where we have no idea what caused the twenty cuts.There are experts that will tell you some ideas, but????????

So why not turn off the outside world and talk to each other? If even for a hour. Do you even know the family name of five neighbors? 

Oh so old fashioned you say. And if your first response is I do not have the time for stuff like that, then I ask again, what are our priorities? 

If you do not have the time to look at your child or sibling or parent or grandparent or aunt and uncle or cousin in the eye and ask them how are they doing; what exactly do you have time for? Or do you know if your neighbor is laid off or ill or moving or successful? When have you broken bread with those around you, no matter who they are?

We are human beings, why is everything else more important than being a human being?

I will end this with a funny admission. I am horrible with names even when I am one hundred percent sure of the name I do not always address people by their name; some kind of psychological block or something, so when I say do you know five family names of your neighbors I would be hard pressed to say last names, however over the last five years I have interacted heavily in our neighborhood and could tell you what has gone on with easily fifteen to twenty neighbors. I have even visited some that moved out of town.Sure we were in the state for other reasons, but we made the extra effort to go see them since we were close as neighbors. It is knowing the people around you as a person that will make all the difference in the world to them and you.