Apalachee High School: The Questions That Haunt Me at Night

[lees1975]

https://baptistnews.com/article/apalachee-high-school-the-questions-that-haunt-me-at-night/

I begin with a confession. When I first hear of a school shooting, my initial instinct is to try not to process it very deeply. I try not to think about it. I try not to watch the news coverage or read the latest news stories.

I am not at all proud of this, but I can see that it is what I often do. The reason is that it hurts too damn much. I don’t wantto dive deeply into this new horror, this new murder of children and teachers, this new shattering of families and communities, this senseless evil on top of other senseless evils.

I say this as someone who spent three full years writing a dissertation about the Holocaust. While my children were very little, I was working all day at my paid job and then reading and writing at night about the often imaginatively sadistic Nazi murder of 1.5 million children — and those who tried and mainly failed to save those children. In today’s terms, I realize I have murder-of-children PTSD.

I hate that tremble of fear. I hate that I live in a country where that tremble of fear is perfectly rational — for grandparents and parents, for teachers and school staff and, most of all, for the children themselves. Our beloved children — who must go to school in fear, who must do shooter drills the way their grandparents did nuclear bomb drills, who every so often find themselves watching their classmates and teachers being shot to death during third period.

How does a 14-year-old get access to a weapon of war and manage to leave home with it to go to school? From the home side, how is that even possible? Were loaded assault weapons just lying around unsecured? Was no one paying attention to what this child took to school?

To those candidates running for office this year, I say this: People will truly begin to believe in our democracy and have hope in our future when our politicians actually begin to solve the greatest problems that afflict us. One of these is gun violence, especially when it takes the lives of our children.

Solve this. Solve this. Solve this. Now.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Americans have to want to solve the problem.

So far they show no signs of changing anything.

[RussBLib]

3. it's not "Americans"

...Americans want to solve the gun problem by 80-90% on various gun issues, but it's the GOP that refuses to make any changes to our gun laws. Todays Dems want to act, but keep getting blocked by the GOP. The Dem majority is not big enough in the Senate and nonexistent in the House to get legislation passed.

Frankly, I think a few too many Dems take the shelter offered by the GOP to do nothing about assault weapons. They are afraid of the outrage that they think will be produced if they actually DO something on guns.

https://russblib.blogspot.com

[Skittles]

4. thank you

repukes cater to the gun humping cowards, it's that simple

[Irish_Dem]

6. It's time to take responsibility and stop blaming others.

We live in a democracy.

We can vote in leaders who will deal with gun violence.

The helpless routine will not solve the problem.

[Skittles]

7. yeah sure

half-ass democracy - millions more people voted for Hillary, where did that get us

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/25/politics/gun-control-violence-what-matters/index.html

[Irish_Dem]

5. Wrong. We MUST stop blaming others and take responsibility.

Americans REFUSE to vote in leaders who will stop gun violence.

We live in a democracy.

Americans can vote in leaders who will take care of the gun issue.

But Americans REFUSE to do so.

We must stop pretending to be helpless.

[Silent Type]

2. He was given the gun by dad. Kid probably slept with it. Here's the type ad manufacturers use to convince people

that you can't be a man without an AR-15 and similar.

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