The madness of debating gun violence ~ violently!

There is a darkness that is growing each time another mass murder occurs. Not only is it horrendous for all the obvious reasons, but our world at large has become so contentious that I can hardly bear the bitterness and the blame played out in the media. Why are we expending so much energy debating the causes of this growing trend? Yes some causes are more subjectively obvious than others but our disagreements around them need to be tempered by our compassion and humanity and decisive action!

Clearly our political system is deeply flawed for us to be where we are, where the red and blue division has become such a painfully sad chasm. I have my theories about which elements of wrongdoing, mental illness, rhetoric and laws are more influential and impactful than others, but I fail to see the value of that discourse at this point. But more than that, there is a destructive element that goes beyond a wasteful energy expenditure. It’s propagating a different kind of violence, that which is literally tearing us apart at the seams.

We are bleeding out, hemorrhaging at an alarming rate that picked up the pace sometime after Sandy Hook, the mass shooting one would think would end all others. As a Connecticut resident I know of people who have been accused of making up the tragedy of their dead children that were shot that brutal day, which feels as sickening as those that doubt the reality of the existence of the Holocaust.  If that thinking is not caused by the divisiveness, then it’s certainly being fueled by it.

I am disheartened to say the least, as I read of how some people I love feel and what they believe. I am determined to avoid trying to make my point of how clearly I see things and how blinded I truly believe they are. Blinded by their Truth to that which I consider my own. I wrestle within myself how to hold that when with them and find a way to naturally help them see things differently, while prying open my own lens to fathom what they are seeing and feeling and have come to believe. For how else can we go on? This fighting and sparring in the media is literally killing us.

If only we could somehow get lawmakers together in a truly non partisan way, and manage to enact sensible legislation that maintains the spirit of the 2nd amendment, while putting an end to how easy it is to use and kill innocent people with automatic weapons of truly mass destruction. Really, in what reality does it make sense to have weapons of war so readily accessible and usable so that our everyday lives have become warzones? Dear God what do we have to do to get together on this ?!!!