When Will this End?

UPDATED*

I cannot believe that I am writing about this again. The last time I wrote about it, 6 months ago, 12 people lost their lives in a movie theatre, innocently watching the midnight session of  The Dark Knight Rises, when some crazed gunman entered with a semi automatic and just mowed people down. 58 others were injured. It was shocking!

Earlier this week a man opened fire in a crowded Oregon Shopping Mall, killing 2 and injuring one, who is still fighting for her life.

Today, a young man walked into an elementary school, in a quiet country nook of a town with a bulletproof vest and 4 weapons, and killed a kindergarten teacher who was his mother, 20 of her kindergarten students, and several staff. The final toll of 27.

How can this be possible? How can we allow it to happen? It’s an unfathomable tragedy, made even more tragic, coming at a time when those little children and their families are getting excited about Christmas. Now, instead of shopping for gifts, their parents are making funeral arrangements.

The country is reeling, shocked and horrified, the President cried while addressing the nation, which just made me cry AGAIN, the whole nation is struggling to make some sense where there is none to be made.

I’ve been crying all afternoon, I can’t help it and I can’t stop. I picked my kids up today because I needed to, then I walked them to Taekwondo, because I needed to. I told them about the tragedy, we are all very, very sad….
The Princess posted this on facebook from Australia:

I would dare anyone to walk up to the parent of one of those kids and tell them that “it’s not guns who kill people it’s people that kill people..” Go and tell them exactly why you should have the right to bear arms. I will never ever send my (very far in the future) kids to a school in America with gun laws like this. You shouldn’t have to be thankful that it wasn’t your kids school. It just shouldn’t happen. Can’t take moisturizer on a plane, but give any dumb ass who can write their name a gun.

It’s somber in America tonight, parents are holding their children a little tighter, though 20 families are not. Parents are turning off their phones and computers and playing with their children and tucking then into bed, though 20 are not.

Perhaps this time it will stir enough passion to have a real debate about gun control, a real conversation about the 2nd amendment, which needs a serious revamp.

How can we live in this country, and not be able to safely send our children to school. Not college, not high school but elementary school. The place where they learn ABC’s and do paintings for the fridge. Where innocence resides…….and belongs. They have a right as children to be safe in school. It is our responsibility to ensure that safety.

This is not a war torn country, we’re not in Israel or Palestine, Syria or Afganistan, where it IS dangerous for your children to attend school.

We live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. We’re better than this. Or we should be.

Is this enough now? Are we done yet? Can we stop the senseless slaughter of innocent people by gunman now? Can we? Are we brave enough?

It was said today by the White House Press Secretary, that today was not the day to talk about gun control, BUT IT IS………….

Every day is the right time to talk about it, and we need talk about it and keep talking about it until INNOCENT children stop being slaughtered at school. Until innocent people stop getting slaughtered while they shop. Until it’s FIXED. Every single day.

Other countries can do it. Plenty of them. American can too, I know we can, so let’s grow some fucking balls and end this. Write letters, have protests and marches, make the Government listen. Make them change the laws. This has to end now, before it happens again, because if we don’t then it’s only a matter of time before it does.

Let’s work really hard to make this senseless slaughter the last one. EVER. For those beautiful little kids.

* Since writing this post, the details changed a little. The shooter killed his mother at home, she was not connected with the school and the children were in 1st grade.