Same Old Song and Dance

 Nineteen elementary school-aged children were murdered in a classroom along with two teachers and an additional 15 people were injured when an 18-year-old gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde, TX with a newly purchased semi-automatic weapon. As parents mourned and struggled to understand, politicians sent out the usual thoughts and prayers and President Biden asked rhetorically, "Why do  we let this keep happening?"

Why, indeed? Why should schoolchildren be targeted in this way? Why should guns that can shoot thirty rounds at a time be legally sold? Why should politicians pray for the dead while doing so little to keep people alive?

The outrage that 4th-grade children should so easily be mowed down in a town of 16,000 is horrendous. The fact that the gun used in the killings was able to be purchased by a kid without so much as a lesson, a license, or parental permission is hard to fathom. Also, where were the police? Why did it take an hour for a tactical unit with the tools/equipment to be assembled and show up at the school? 

Now, here we are two days later and already the handwringing is subsiding. Already we are being told that legislation will take a while. In the meantime, people in Uvalde are burying their young, including the gunman, and trying to make sense out of the nonsensical. And sure, we can keep pointing that the fact that gun violence in the US is so wildly out of control compared to our western nation neighbors. And sure, we can point at the gun lobby and their outsized power over the political leaders in our states and country and how their money is paying for the deaths of innocent people most every day. And sure, we can point at ourselves and the frustration that we have both for those who think the 2nd Amendment means that everybody should be toting a gun and those who think there should be very strict requirements for possessing them. But, if we really do believe in the sanctity of life, we have to decide how that is going to coexist with a culture that celebrates guns and violence.

In the meanwhile, the National Rifle Association will still be holding its convention today in Houston, three days after the shooting in Uvalde. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, was supposed to be there in person but will now provide a video welcome. His opponent, Beto O'Rourke, who was at Abbott's press conference pressed him the day after the shooting on taking action to deter future massacres. The governor was mute while O'Rourke said, “The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing. This is on you, until you choose to do something different. This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday."  Also in the US Senate, “Is Texas the tipping point? Is this what we’ve been waiting for?” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on CNN, hours before the Senate was to vote on whether to advance the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022. The answer was a resounding no as the bill was not passed by the 60 votes needed. Indeed, it is the same old song and dance.