Tag Archives: Gun Violence

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The Worst of Games

“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love… Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Normally if I post, I stick to my Monday schedule. I also don’t normally post on these types of events, because it seems morally wrong to profit from the attention. But I need to say something for myself, whether I end up posting or not. I just need to say it.

Gun violence is something that stopped shocking me ages ago. Admittedly, when I hear of school shootings that seem to occur almost monthly at this point, I’m no longer outraged or saddened. It’s now just something that occurs. I’m probably not even alone in this apathy. No one seems to care enough to talk about solutions. Some even point out that it’s merely a cost of our freedoms, including the most recent victim of this senselessness. And I’m just too tired to waste my mental energy on something that no one seems to care about until it happens again. And then poof! It’s gone again, until we are reminded of it when it inevitably happens again.

What people are more interested in is this game of being right or wrong. Of being the moral superior. Of the blame game. “Oh you think this is so tragic about this Conservative dying to some crazy lib? I didn’t see you post anything about any violence from those MAGA cultists?” It’s just as tiring. If you are all too dense to see it’s all wrong, there’s no hope to be had. Even the most vile of people being gunned down for their beliefs is not something to be celebrated. It’s just another victim of senselessness, even if there is this instinct to let the outrage of their vitriol to believe it was deserved. Hate begets hate.

The only people who are winning are the ones who celebrate divisiveness and this belief that they are better because they believe they are on the morally correct side. Seeing this unfold on social media, seeing a man with beliefs I wholly disagree with becoming a martyr for a cause he himself said was just a consequence of freedom is sickening. To see that a person who contributed to the spread of divisiveness be celebrated for being murdered is sickening. You can think a person who died was a terrible person. You are free to mourn him and his family as others are free to point out the hypocrisy in mourning this but not mourning a democratic state lawmaker that was also assassinated for their beliefs. But I promise that none of this does any good for anything but creating arguments and hurt feelings. Hate begets hate, after all

I usually try to end these posts with some positive messages. Some “Hold your head up high, you got this” message to help bring hope. But after everything I saw yesterday, especially on my own feeds, I’m not sure there is any hope. There is only divisive hate that seems to grow on both sides, separating everyone further. That makes any reasonable discourse impossible because everyone is so stubborn in the belief that they are the moral superior; there is no point in giving your own point of view with the fear of becoming an enemy. I am even hesitating posting this because I’ll have some people accuse me of being some snowflake, sheep of a liberal or a hate apologist conservative, when I’m neither. I’m just someone who is disappointed and sad at watching this deterioration that has been occurring for over a decade. They want us divided, and we’re just letting it happen. They want these mind-controlled masses, not the free thinkers.

I opted to share the entire quote from MLK, Jr. Because he was both warning about the contagious nature of those negative feelings but reminding people of the compassion, empathy, and open conversations that are needed to heal. I guess maybe deep down in my apathetic soul, I’m hoping people start coming to their senses. Maybe. Or we can continue to argue about being right all the time. Because that’s been working out well so far, right?

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Teachers with Guns

I’m not sure about most people, but I can think about a few teachers in my time at school where the thought of them with a gun was infinitely scarier than the craziest kid in our class. I won’t name names, but trust me there are a few of them that I swear would have shot their students if they had the means to. Times were different back then. I think. I don’t even know anymore. For all I know, back then was the wild west and they all had guns. Times were different back then.

Joking aside, this week there will be a national protest against gun violence in schools where students will be walking out. (My oldest has been deeply considering this and asked my opinion. As I did the last time he pondered walking out, I shrugged and told him to do what he thought was right. Not sure where he ended up but I guess I’ll find out when he gets home.) I remember when Columbine happened. I remembered the drills that took place afterwards, where the police would actually pretend they were shooters trying to break in the classroom. It was scary, even as a teenager. I knew it was fake. I knew it was just a drill. It was still terrifying as they aggressively banged on the locked door trying to get in. Realism got the point across back then: we weren’t safe in the schools. Every time there was a fire drill, I would worry that it was a fake and something was going to happen. I remember wanting to cover my ears and trying, only to be scolded for it. I remember my chest feeling like it was going to cave in every time we had any drill at the school. It wasn’t their fault. This was just how things were going to be now.

Then, I became a parent. I wasn’t too worried about him at elementary school. Those places are so locked down that you can’t even get in while wearing a hat. Then Sandy Hook happened. I worried every time that I put my oldest on the bus to school that today was going to be the day I get the bad news. Now, I worry about both of them in school. School should be the one place where they are safe from that level of violence. Children should not be massacred in schools.

This is not an anti-guns post. I’m not anti-gun. I’m anti-crazy people and criminals with guns. There’s no perfect solution for this that will fix it overnight. People are going to hurt people no matter what. That’s a fact and a scary one. What this will be is a post that is anti-teachers in the classrooms with guns. The idea of giving federal aid to schools to train teachers to use guns and have them in the classrooms is insane to me. First of all, the original scenario: Giving guns to underpaid individuals in high-stress jobs never ends well. Also, where is this money coming from? I see a lot of policies coming out of this administration that involve money but not a lot of revenue coming in. There is also the final problem with this solution: you have schools that do not have enough money to run, buy supplies, or can’t run after-school programs. There’s no aid coming in for that. But, hey, let’s give them money so they can spend it on the NRA’s cause so I can get more money when election season rolls around. The idea makes me feel uneasy and almost makes me consider homeschooling as an option.

The point is that teachers already don’t have what they need to run a classroom and teach our children. They don’t have the time or the resources because of bureaucracy and lack of funding. But now, you are going to give them money for guns. Awesome idea. Why not make sure that the resource officer is actually on site in case something goes wrong? Why not give them that money to focus on helping kids who are bullied to the point of wanting to shoot up a school? Why not use the money to create better anti-bullying initiatives or more ways to constructively decompress at school so kids aren’t so stressed out? I can think of a dozen other ways that money could be used to help prevent these things that do not involve arming that crazy teacher that doesn’t even want to be there to begin with.

I agree with the sentiment that “guns aren’t the problem; people are.” I don’t have a gun. I’m too crazy for that. I have shot people with a BB gun and didn’t feel remorseful for it. I’m too short-tempered, anxious, and paranoid for that. Heck, I even admit to having something that can be used as a weapon around me at any given time. People are crazy and irrational. Parents are letting their kids do whatever they want without accountability, creating a culture of dumb, entitled, and even more irrational people. “More guns” is not the answer; “fixing the broken culture” is.