The Vulnerability of Our Children
As parents, most of us strive to protect our children. We do that in many ways. We try to improve on the "ovarian lottery" to which all of ourchildren are subjected. These 20 children were provided the very best we have in our powers to accomplish such protection. But it failed for them.
What do we know? We all, regardless of gender,class, and race, come into this world, un-consulted, through this lottery; naked and totally dependent. We are "trapped" in various ways for a period of 21 years before we are allowed by governments and society to "break free". We have to endure pressures, greater for most than those faced by these 20, most of which concern our physical and emotional safety.
As a 73-year-old whose namesake was murdered in 1933, at gun-point, at the age of 12; whose own child-hood ended abruptly at the age of six; I'm keenly aware of the nature of the "traps" many, if not most, children endure in this nation.
This nation was born out of the barrel of the gun, used to exterminate those living here at the time of European arrival, and the lash of the whip. It has not been able to shake its reverence for guns or the "bunker mentality" that pervades every aspect of our culture.
Our first response to this latest evil event, tearing at our collective hearts, is to focus on the gun -- not on the shooters -- and certainly not on the lethal combination of gun and shooter. If this event can't change this tendency, we have no hope as a nation. Our collective search for "safety" borders on national paranoia.
Our first response to this latest evil event, tearing at our collective hearts, is to focus on the gun -- not on the shooters -- and certainly not on the lethal combination of gun and shooter. If this event can't change this tendency, we have no hope as a nation. Our collective search for "safety" borders on national paranoia.
We know the shooter fits a familiar pattern; male, and usually white. The phenomenon exists almost exclusively in this nation and in Europe. The victims are killed, in mass most often, and perceived by the shooter to be persons weaker than themselves in some way.
We must get up off our knees, stop crying, stop praying, and start DOING what we know we should do!
Stay Vigilant!
Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC
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