Save The (American) Children
By Karen and Erica
We woke on Thursday to see the words “active” and “multiple” on our devices. We knew what that meant. Someone had shot a bunch of people somewhere in America. Again.
Over the last decade or so we have become somewhat inured to this news--a horrifying thought, but true. And bad. The toll these massacres take on everyone in America is crushing, and growing, but of course is not nearly the toll it takes on the victims and their families. And it is incomprehensible. Why do we, repeatedly, have to wake up to this shattering reality?
We at Lustre happen to be lawyers, and we do have views about the Second Amendment. Those view are not different from our views as mothers, and wives, and daughters, and friends, and citizens with brains and common sense. We’ve been around long enough to know insanity when we see it. We know in our hearts and our minds that is is not reasonable for us all to have to live like this, forever.
We can agree, surely, that the Founders of this great nation did not intend that evil and unbalanced individuals be enabled to kill children in their schools--tiny nursery schoolers, middle and high schoolers, college kids. The Founders did not intend that such people be enabled to kill young people dancing in nightclubs or listening to music in public squares. The Founders did not intend that such people be enabled to kill human beings of faith praying in houses of worship. The Founders did not intend that such people be enabled to kill workers where they work or where they celebrate a holiday together. The Founders did not intend that horrific scenes of blood and brains be visited upon our first responders, never to be erased from the minds of those who survive being shot in the line of duty. The Founders would be horrified if they were reborn into this nightmare.
Why do we put up with this? Is a real solution that difficult for a people as smart and good as we are? We have to try harder. How about background checks as a tiny start? Over ninety percent of Americans want them, but legislatures refuse to deliver. How about devices that can sense and disable people who are unstable and armed? Fanciful? TechWorld, DoD, science geniuses in academia—help us. If not this, come up with something better. We can do all sorts of amazing things—make this job one. Everyone else, start thinking, hard.
We have a duty to protect our children--from bullets and from their side effects. Instead, we are letting children die, or forcing them to grow up feeling scared and impotent. We can’t let this go on. So let’s get on it, people. We know the risks, all too well. We need a solution. For all of us. For the children.