A Great Nation Wouldn’t Choose Guns Over Children

Lorrie Irby Jackson WHEN Layla walked through the front door Tuesday, I folded her into a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe,” I told her, kissing her cheek. “Did ...

Lorrie Irby JacksonWHEN Layla walked through the front door Tuesday, I folded her into a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe,” I told her, kissing her cheek. “Did you know what happened earlier today in Uvalde?”Confused, she shook her head. I pulled her into the bedroom and directed her attention to the horror unfolding in real time on TV: An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers in the Texas Hill Country town of Uvalde, devastating the families, the state and the nation by becoming the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.As US Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tearfully told his Republican colleagues from the floor of the Senate, soon after the massacre, “This isn’t inevitable. These kids weren’t unlucky. This only happens in this country and nowhere else. ... It is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue.”It’s a horror Murphy knows all too well, as he was elected a month before the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 2012. That December, in Newtown, Conn., a 20-year-old shot and killed six adults and 20 children.Time and again, somehow only the US grapples with multiple mass shootings and little to nothing is done about the prevalence of guns — except a bizarre emphasis by Republicans on the lone possible factor of mental health.“We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world,” Murphy said Tuesday.According to NPR, the US has already witnessed over 200 mass shootings in less than six months. Broken down, that miserable math equals 10 mass shootings a week, for 21 weeks, over 2022′s 145 days. According to some reports, over 600 children in this country have already lost their promising young lives to gun violence this year, exposing millions more to anxiety, depression and PTSD.When my siblings and I attended school, all my parents worried about was the specter of stranger danger, the temptation trifecta of sex, drugs and alcohol, and the possibility of school fights — the ones where their children would dodge fists, not actual bullets. When we first moved to Texas, the only safety drills we were taught were for fire and tornadoes; now children routinely learn hiding places and defensive positions for random shooters.It’s a strange time in history to know that lawmakers are quicker to regulate and restrict what women can do with their own bodies, yet circumvent even the possibility of commonsense controls for weapons. Do children’s heartbeats no longer matter to our lawmakers beyond the fetal stage? How many lives would be saved if those who wanted to purchase guns had to endure the same gauntlet of restrictions that girls and women do to terminate a pregnancy?Over and over again, ever since the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, there’s been a hollow and heartbreaking cycle that we have been relegated to witness and follow: avoid addressing the proliferation of weapons; experience the shock, pain and devastation of an unforeseen shooting event (mass or otherwise); watch lawmakers circumvent any commonsense regulation of said weapons; reelect the excuse makers who cash campaign contributions from the gun lobby; and brace ourselves for an inevitable repeat.Perhaps we need to stop asking the questions we already know the answers to, and use our hurt, pain and rage against those perpetuating this morbid level of American exceptionalism. We can no longer consider ourselves a great country if we continue paying empty lip service instead of protecting our most valuable resource: human life.