Another school shooting

I’m numb.

19 students and a teacher were killed by a gunman at an elementary school. Let that sink in.

The news report claims that the gunman didn’t have any help. That he was a lone shooter. The lone shooter aspect, as in the person who actually pulled the trigger, is correct as far as I can tell. But I disagree with the idea that he didn’t have any help.

He had plenty of help.

He had the help of a culture that did nothing to prevent the shooting. A culture and society and a nation and a government that valued his right to obtain a weapon that could kill 19 children and their teacher in a school, and did nothing to impede his action of carrying out such an action, over the lives of those children and that teacher.

He had plenty of help. He had help from legislators who gladly accepted donations from gun rights groups to prevent them from passing or even considering any legislation at all that might reduce the possibilities of another shooting happening. Those donations were more valuable to the legislators than the lives of the 19 school children and the teacher.

He had plenty of help. He had help from people who compartmentalize society to the point that they make no connection at all between a school shooting and anything else that we do or don’t do as a nation. Mostly because so many of us are more concerned with winning an argument, rather than improving the lives of the people in the country. Fighting over gun rights is nice and…