We Are Not Brave Enough

I woke up this morning to hear the news of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida,.  Mass casualties. A man went to an LGBT night club armed and willing to kill.  After sending messages to make sure that people that I know in the area were okay,  I thought about how many times I've rolled out of my bed to read similar headlines.  Too many to count.  Why is that?

We have not been brave enough.

As a nation, we have stood by too many times, while idiots with guns feel entitled to buy guns, wear guns, and randomly shoot those guns at who ever they want, whenever they want.  This has been happening for years.  Presidents shot. Children murdered. Coworkers killed.  And nothing changes.

We haven't been brave enough.

In the immediate aftermath, we have cried, held candlelight vigils, written op-ed pieces. Parents have held pictures of their children on television, asking for the violence to stop. Some people have actually stood up and demanded changes, formed political action groups, their voices soon drowned out by the next headline.  After a while, nobody hears them anymore.  And nothing changes.

We haven't been brave enough.

Open carry is allowed in Texas, and no one wants to stand up to the armed men and women who feel that carrying a gun is the only way to deter problems, in contradiction to most research by law enforcement.  Children are killed weekly because their inattentive parents think having a loaded gun in a purse or on the nightstand will protect their families from criminals.  And nothing changes.

We haven't been brave enough.

The NRA capitalizes on these shootings by shoving money at politicians, so they will subvert any reasonable possibility of gun control.  We as a nation know this, have known it. None of these politicians have been held accountable for being purchased by the gun lobby.  And still nothing changes. 

 We haven't been brave enough.

We haven't been brave enough to stand up to NRA lobbyists, to vote their political cronies out of office. We aren't brave enough to say 'no' to the overcompensating, entitled fools who seem to think that owning more guns equals a bigger penis.  Having too many guns is not the same as having too many shoes.

It takes courage to stand up.  It's much easier just to talk about it, and then forget. We haven't been brave enough to stand up and say "ENOUGH", and follow through with actions, such as monitoring and assistance for the mentally ill...and, yes, tougher, common sense gun laws.  If someone is mentally ill, they don't need to own a gun.  If a person is on any government watch list, they don't need to own a gun. Put GPS chips in all guns, fingerprint the owners, and monitor both.  It shouldn't be so easy for a random person to buy a gun without a background check, either.

Maybe all these suggestions won't stop all gun violence. Maybe there are better ideas out there. I don't have all the answers.  But we, as a nation, desperately need to find our courage, the guts to stand up.  It will take some hard decisions about who we are as a country and how we want the world to see us.  Without that, there will be no change at all, even as they are still counting the dead in Orlando.  

We need to be brave enough to at least try.