Maybe too early, too soon, but

I, as millions of other Americans are, am sick to my stomach. 

We are staring at the ongoing horror of another mass shooting, made a bit more horrendous to our hearts because of the age of the victims yet no less devastating to a community than what happened in Buffalo less than two weeks ago.

The news people spoke, the politicians spoke, the experts spoke, the people cried, but today we sit in empathetic pain for the twenty families in Uvalde, Texas and elsewhere throughout our country as this has happened too often.

There are a few solutions offered, yet each is held hostage to partisanship and money.

Yes, the President tried to boldly attack the money aspect by complaining about the gun lobby. And if you read me regularly you know I have said that lobbying in general too many times goes against what is the better policy for everyone. Singular interests have no business in public policy. I will agree though that the making of money does play a major factor with guns in our society. This one issue is only part of the problem.

So does universal background checks prevent the senseless violence? Actually it might prevent a few, but as long as guns are manufactured people who want one will get one. This will just make a few gun dealers criminals who will bypass these laws rather than holistically solve the problem.

And if money could cure problems then would using left over Covid-19 funds to hire armed security guards for every school help as someone Fox news suggested last night? uh, no and what about grocery stores and movie theaters and shopping malls and every other brick and mortar building in this country? You end up with way too many amateurs armed in public and many of those people might have their own issues.

So would improving how we treat the mental health issues help? Maybe some.

Or should we stop glorifying gun violence on social media?

These are just a few of the solutions that get bantered around every other week when these shootings happen and maybe by incorporating all these in the best light possible we might prevent a few, but all this pales when you consider we cannot talk to each other about this topic. Not as a society, not as a community, not as a family, not even to ourselves are we able to dig deep enough into our psyche to address the real problems. We are alienated from each other and not just on this topic, but for many issues facing this country. 

And yes, money, social media, the taboo of mental illness, the lack of preparedness for disasters all play a role in addressing these situations, yet the inability to admit to ourselves that we are incapable of productive conversation prevents us from actually understanding what is the problem.

And the first step is our self, then our family and work up from there. We do not allow people to ask for help. We hide from any problem as much as possible.We gather in groups that make us feel better and close our mind to what is in actually in front of us. 

Paraphrasing from a character from the cartoon Pogo who once said we are the problem. no one wants to hear that though. And it is across the whole spectrum of American life.Do you feel comfortable telling your boss you are behind in your work or do not understand the assignment? Are you able to talk frankly to your adult kids about a problem you or they may have? Can you admit defeat to get help? Heck how do you address your physical health issues much less telling someone you feel anxious or scared? We do not do this well. We are programmed to lie rather than admit to a short coming. 

And if we cannot admit to simple to major problems within ourselves we fail even more so with people close to us. We let problems fester because we do not want the confrontation. Sure there are individual stories that you might share that refute the above generalities, but in the big picture those instances happen much less than they should.

So where do we go from here? First we do need to take at least some public actions to get started. These mass shootings need to be addressed in some way to hopefully prevent what we can. To really change things though we need to start looking at ourselves and not be afraid to ask for help. We need to change the mindset in our society that not being perfect or the best or problem free is your only way to present yourself to society. We have to know how to say oops. We have to be honest. 

I was four years old and didn’t understand it all when I encountered the first tragedy in my life.My parents were good friends with another couple who had three children one my age. One day I asked why we didn’t go over to see my friend anymore. He was basically the first person I interacted with beyond my family as a young child so playing with him was a special treat. My parents didn’t have an answer for me at the time. Later on I found out the Mother had killed two of her children including my friend and significantly injured the third before killing herself. People always say something snapped. No, there are signs in advance.It is way past time to address the signs.When we individually and in society can say there is a problem and there is no shame because there is a problem and go towards long before “someone snaps” we will prevent more disasters than all the public policy you can dream up. And again we do need some honest action in public policy to at least put in place some mechanisms to prevent what we can, yet along with this action we need our leaders to lead the way in talking about the deeper issues, too.

 

And on a personal note, I am still somewhat limited in posting due to an ongoing injury. It is both difficult and somewhat painful to type. My minor inconvenience is nothing compared to what others are going through though so I felt I had to say something beyond saying prayers for the souls of these young children and asking for strength for the families.