sorryless

Just Another Day

Sorryless89 Comments

School Shooting

Violence is like a weed. It does not die even in the greatest drought.
-Simon Wiesenthal

This is where a Heroes post is supposed to show up, as it has been doing every Friday for a while now. Except that I couldn’t bring myself to abide by the regularly scheduled programming. I tried last night when I got home, setting all my bookmarked stories in a row and then figuring out how to dovetail them into a post worth reading. But the images of Santa Clarita kept calling until I had to pack it in for the night.

Thursday had become one long journey into darkness, again. And there was no blessed opening into which I could pluck heroes out of the carnage. So I packed it in and hoped that tomorrow would be better.

That’s what we do now. That’s what we’re used to doing when another day like yesterday happens. And we’ve had twenty years of days like this now. It has become our regularly scheduled programming in its own wicked way. And here we are, no closer to an answer than we were when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School and murdered twelve students and one teacher.

Saugus High School became the latest chapter in a national saga when a sixteen year old boy walked in and opened fire. It took him sixteen seconds to change tomorrow for every single person who was in that building as well as the scores of families and friends who are left to pick up the pieces that our elected officials want nothing to do with. And if you’re waiting for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to come up with a solution, I’ve got a bridge to nowhere I can sell you.

Next week, the parents of two victims will show up to a funeral service to bury their children. One sixteen year old girl and one fourteen year old boy who were not numbers, who were not political capital, who were not meant to be stapled to the next gun rally. They were just getting started with their lives, and we failed them. Again.

Twenty years of this. It has travailed four Presidents, two wars and the worst terrorist attack on American soil. It has become a cheap trick that we perpetuate on our youth by not saying or doing the things that need to be said and done. And the worst crime of all is to understand this for what it has truly become. Just another day.

When I laid down to go to sleep last night, the images started flooding my mind until I realized that a Heroes post wasn’t going to happen this morning. Because I couldn’t bring myself to do that, even though I’ve done it before. I couldn’t just wake up this morning and treat yesterday as just another day. And when I thought about it some more, the most frightening of thoughts came to me and I just started to cry.

This is who we are.

 

 

89 thoughts on “Just Another Day”

    • It’s all we can do, and I send you one back LA. But our elected officials need to do so much better. And if they refuse, we need new ones. You and me, we understood our kids from the get. We communicated. We were there. But for a lot of kids, it’s just not this way. And those kids start spiraling, and then the possibilities become horrible ones.

      Liked by 3 people

  3. I feel the pain that you so richly describe, Pilgrim. Twenty years is a long time to put up with this horror. I find little comfort that my kids are out of school since this could happen anywhere. Bless you, man.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. I have no words, but maybe that is good. Maybe it is time to put words aside, tear down that bridge to nowhere, and start to rebuild something stronger, better. I do not have answers, but I am open to discussions and brainstorming and starting to build. And if that does not work, let’s tear that down and start over. Because I do not want this to be us!

    Heart-wrenching sobs!

    Liked by 2 people

    • Ella,

      Hugs and blessings to you for this. I agree with you and yes, we need to get to a different place, no matter if we need to tear shit down to get there. Because the status quo is no solution at all.

      I can’t believe this HAS to be us.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Despite the gravitas, it’s beautifully told. Columbine unleashed a demon that refuses to be quenched. Again. Why can’t the NRA for starters drop their holsters just long enough to see something needs to be done. And now. What’s it going to take? One of their kids in order for them to finally feel what these latest parents feel? I find it all pretty mystifying. What’s it gonna take?

    Liked by 1 person

    • That’s just it. If not the last time, or the time before that, or the times and times and times before that? What in the blessed hell is going to bring these people to their senses? To see that we aren’t interested in a debate.

      How many rings does a person have to jump through to buy a house? Or secure a mortgage? But you can just walk into a gun shop and walk out with a gun?

      Oh wait a minute. Money. It’s talking. And kids are dying.

      Beyond shameful.

      Liked by 1 person

        • Anyone can get a gun, and this fact is still celebrated. And that whole thing about how an armed citizenry can help prevent these shootings? Umm . . how many times has that happened?

          Liked by 1 person

          • It’s to pretend they too want a change but really don’t. Dave Cullen’s first book on Columbine was chilling yet not enough to educate those in the position to make sure it couldn’t happen again. Dylan’s mother, one of the shooters, lectures now on the mistakes she made as a parent, turning her horrific experience of, being the mother of a killer alongside losing her son, to try to help others not make the same mistakes she and her husband made, who by the way, hated her activism hence, now they’re divorced. He wanted to never speak of it again and she, in order to heal, needed to by helping. So much pain. And it’s still so In play. A very long point I just made.

            Liked by 1 person

          • There isn’t one step that must be taken, but many. Guns need to be a difficult thing to purchase. Just because it’s a right, that doesn’t make it something you should be able to order up online.

            But beyond that, we have the issue of mental illness, behavioral issues that escape the net, etc. These are concerns to which we are much too quick to gloss over.

            Parkland handed us a convenient foil in the resource officer who did next to nothing. But what about Nikolas Cruz escaping that net? Several times? Until the worst case scenario happened?

            Liked by 1 person

  6. B,

    I, for one, am glad you chose to push Heroes aside to write this. I’m pissed that you had to, mind you. Twenty years and how many deaths later? We should not have to be still writing about this. It should not be just another day… It HAS to stop being just another day. This had “only” two victims – which we know is not the truth. Two may have died but two families have become victims once again.

    I read your exchange with LA and have to agree. Those days of letting kids handle their differences after school at the park were a necessary part of growing up and dealing with disappointment. We learned what ‘no’ meant and we learned the consequences of when we dissed the ‘no’.

    We know the issue is not JUST the guns but for heaven’s sake, can we make obtaining them more difficult? Jesus. And can we find a way to dismantle the damn NRA or, at the very least, reduce their power? No, I know, I’m pissing in the wind.

    Between helping our children to better cope with life’s “unfairness” and making the obtention of guns more difficult, maybe, just may, there will be fewer and fewer “just another days”.

    You’ve done it again. Put into your beautiful words this tragedy, refusing to let it be swept under the carpet. I love for you for it.

    To finding better ways to bring us peace,

    Q

    Liked by 1 person

    • Q,

      Your opening thoughts were mine as well. As I wrote this, I kept thinking to myself that someone, somewhere will make note of the “low” body count. Because everything, every single thing that rhymes with humanity . . it’s being trampled as it is.

      Things have changed, Life is different. Granted all that, but it’s no excuse for what the NRA refuses to do. It’s no excuse for what our elected officials COULD do, but won’t. And what does it come down to? Money and special interests. Over human life.

      The NRA is an abject lesson in power run amok. Their influence over every day life is such that common sense solutions are now viewed as “liberal minded”. God forbid you question the status quo. Well, here’s the thing. I’m not liberal. So now what?

      As I said in a comment on here, it’s harder to buy a house or obtain a loan than it is to purchase a gun. Why? Money.

      I love you for this comment. And thank you for it.

      Peace and love

      B

      Liked by 1 person

      • I couldn’t help but think – they’re going to say it’s not a tragedy… only two bodies. Because everything big deserves a time slot so, no biggie. But it is a biggie. Every fucking time a kid gets a gun at Walmart (and you’re right, girls have a harder time getting the pill) and lets loose on his fellow students, it’s a biggie. Even if no one gets hit, it’s a biggie.

        How the NRA became so powerful is a question I ask myself. It’s time to tear down this association – it can be rebuilt in a more logical, sane manner. And can we change that stupid 2nd amendment and make it fit to today’s world? It’s no longer the wild wild west.

        Love and peace, always.

        Liked by 1 person

        • I had a conversation recently with a Trump apologist. I told him the idea of Trump was appealing to many, but the reality has been a blight on our nation’s history. He mostly listened, except when I got to the part about Rome. That’s when he pushed back.

          I told him, Rome once thought it would be around forever. How’d that turn out?

          So yes, it’s all a biggie. Even if we treat these shooting as if they’re snow storms. Round the clock coverage for a day . . sometimes half a day. Then on to the next story.

          I think we have to go to the elected representatives who cower in fear of standing up to the NRA because they’re more interested in self preservation than the kids who are dying.

          The NRA has become like a cult fascination to the die hards who perpetrate this mythological Americana where guns are akin to BBQ and beer. But it’s interesting how perspective changes things. As when Soledad O’Brien pondered just how quickly things would change if young black men walked into a Walmart toting rifles because it was their “constitutional right” to do so. Hmmmm.

          Liked by 1 person

          • You got me all enthusiastic when you said the apologist was listening…

            Rome, indeed. He must have said something along the ilk of, it’s still there… (not catching what you meant…)

            Yes, each and every one is a biggie. And I hadn’t heard of it until you mentioned it. Proof that this is treated like another car theft, not worth mentioning.

            Yes. First you need representatives who will NOT cower in fear…

            It has taken on epic proportions only made all the more “sexy” by all the films where the US saves the world with their powerful weapons…

            Methinks that would not work out so well… Hmmm indeed.

            Liked by 1 person

          • He’s not in your face about it, but he’s also of the opinion that America will never fall and he takes it personally if someone says differently.

            No, he got my point. Which is why he became defensive.

            Just another day. Another news item.

            The lobby is so entrenched, it’s going to take a complete about face from politics as usual.

            Isn’t that the truth. It’s in keeping with the us vs them thing too. The narrative, it’s all wrong. And that’s why nothing ever changes.

            Liked by 1 person

          • Oh my goodness… Wearing rather thick rose-coloured glasses, is he?

            And sorry. I should not have assumed.

            Shaking my head.

            It will take a slashing at the knees to make it fall. Then and only then can it be changed – unless the same like-minded peeps are put in charge of it. Then it will all be for naught.

            Indeed. It’s why I now avoid movies like that, to tell the truth. The arrogance that only the USA can come in and save the world is anathema to me.

            Liked by 1 person

          • It is that, isn’t it?

            It’s the same old merry go round and those with the power and the ability to change things, won’t. So when they’re challenged, it becomes more a matter of name calling and casting stones for them.

            That’s the problem. The like minded people are not open minded people. And as such, the business as usual continues to cost us lives.

            We’ve got a stamp, a logo. Stars and stripes, underwritten by China.

            Liked by 1 person

          • I swear, sometimes that is what it seems.

            Same old, tired, creaky, falling apart merry-go-round. Throwing words around instead of ideas.

            Yes. They are not. Don’t you feel like we’re sounding like broken records? Time to through it out and get a new one.

            Eeesh.

            Liked by 1 person

          • And it’s funny because they would call the other side a bunch of rose colored glasses dreamers.

            I’ve said it for a while now. There is nothing an entrenched politicians loves more than an argument that goes nowhere. Because it keeps them in office.

            Maybe we really DO need to go to one term. Across the board. Seems so extreme, but have we got any better ideas to start with?

            Liked by 1 person

          • That is a given.

            That is EXACTLY it. I am only grateful your presidents cannot go more than two terms. They should consider bringing this type of limitation to all levels of political office. Maybe, just maybe then, can change come.

            Hah! I responded to the second paragraph before reading the third! So. Um. Yeah.

            Like

          • The NRA lobby, like so many others, is much too strong. That has to change.

            There have to be more proactive steps taken in schools when kids get in any kind of trouble that includes violence or threats to others.

            There are so many steps we could be taking right now. Including banning assault rifles. And if you absolutely want to have one, fine. But you need to keep it at a licensed shooting range.

            We’re not the ones who are broken. But the system sure is.

            Liked by 1 person

          • Agreed.

            There does. They need to stop turning a blind eye.

            Exactly. I understand they are fun to shoot (shaking my head that I write this) but honestly, they should not be allowed outside said range – which is a rather smart idea!

            It needs more than a bandaid.

            Liked by 1 person

          • The NRA is going to have to pay for its callous reactions to these shootings. It won’t continue in perpetuity.

            Yeah, I think it has to happen. There is no reason why an individual needs to have an assault rifle in their home. It’s not a weapon given to defending oneself unless you’re in battle.

            Way more

            Liked by 1 person

          • I would like to believe that…

            There is zero reason. They belong on the killing fields of war – one does not need this type of weapon to defend themselves against an intruder or any other type of reason people justify owning these things.

            Yessiree.

            Liked by 1 person

          • I do believe the NRA is going to pay the piper. I really do.

            The assault rifle as sporting weapon myth is perpetrated by those who want to argue about slippery slopes. As in “If you wake this type of gun away, what’s next?”. That’s not an argument. At all. It’s flat soda is what it is. And yet, we allow it to continue. How? Why?

            Liked by 1 person

          • It’s funny how many of the same peeps who would insist that the government can’t stick their noses in the gun debate . . are the same peeps who insist that the government CAN stick their noses in what a woman does with her own body. And what gay people can and cannot do.

            Funny how that works

            Liked by 1 person

  8. Our American society has a fatal illness, and it’s as if the doctor is saying to the lung cancer patient, “here, let me light that cigarette for you!”

    Are there any adults in the room?

    And the media is complicit as well as this demented craving for fame at all costs. It’s insane and not the sort of world I grew up in. Hard for me to really understand.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. It certainly has become who we are. “Oh look, another shooting … yeah, Ms. Barista, that was a pumpkin spice latte. Grande.”

    There are all sorts of examples of this, but gun violence is definitely the poster child of how our fractured politics has left us with leaders incapable of leading, incapable of compromise, incapable of implementing solutions.

    We are no longer capable of solving big problems. They just continue to grow and metastasize.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Yep. Just that way.

      These politicians are more inclined to save their asses than to implement common sense solutions. I’m not saying this ends with that, but hell . . they’re not even trying. And if you don’t work to get there, you get this in perpetuity.

      We’re too divided now. The division has become the conversation.

      Liked by 1 person

      • I kept thinking after Sandy Hook something might be addressed. Instead, it got worse and the victims were repeatedly harassed and trolled. The whole event was considered a hoax by some truly horrible excuses for humans. I mean, are you freakin’ serious????

        Liked by 1 person

        • There were so many times like that over the last twenty years. After Columbine, after that initial shock . . we thought, this can’t happen again. And then it did. And then VA Tech. And then Sandy Hook, and all those children, my God. But instead of that being the time, sides got taken and arguments ensued about gun rights, crisis actors and everything but solutions.

          Liked by 1 person

          • There was a wild piece on 60 Minutes last night about Colorado and the recently passed Red Flag law. 366 mass shootings THIS year alone and there’s 6 weeks left in 2019. Nearly half of the sheriffs in this state will not enforce that law which is set to go into effect in January. WTH?!?! How is it police can just arbitrarily decide not to enforce legislation? How is it the public just let’s them get away with it?

            Liked by 1 person

          • The Sheriffs are elected and should thusly be removed if they refuse to follow the law. Same as that clerk who refused to issue a marriage certificate to gay couples. You’re elected, you follow the law or you go.

            Liked by 1 person

          • Too bad the residents in those counties are supported by a very vocal population. 2nd Amendment supporters are a loud and radical group. When the Democratic controlled legislature passed the Red Flag law, they tried to recall those legislators again (the Senate majority was lost a few years ago on passage of gun control measures following the Aurora shooting). Fortunately they were unsuccessful at gaining the sufficient and proper signatures required. Radical and inept…this time. I think gun safety measures rank equally on par with anti-abortion measures. While I don’t support abortions per se, I do strongly support everyone’s right to chose for their own situation. It’s all just crazy.

            Liked by 1 person

          • And when all these gun rights people are frothing at the mouth about their constitutional rights, do they even bother to consider the rights that have been trampled over and murdered (literally) in the last twenty years?

            Things like the right to life? And the expectations that you can go to school or to work and be safe? What about THOSE rights? What, they don’t count?

            Liked by 1 person

          • They’re not right to life, they’re right to give birth. They are the first to cut benefits to anyone struggling financially but will make carry babies to full term. Hypocrites, the lot of them! There is so much contriving the facts to support their extreme positions. Self righteous bastards.

            Liked by 1 person

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