What future are we creating?

I saw the news yesterday about Charlie Kirk being killed in Utah. I have a lot of thoughts swirling through my head. I’m sad for his family and loved ones, especially his wife and children. I pray that they, like far too many families that have suffered from gun violence, may encounter peace.

As one of the authors of “American Roulette,” a book about gun violence, I believe there shouldn’t be any victims of gun violence. Will this murder spur Republicans to move towards some kind of gun control? I doubt it. They didn’t do anything after the attempted assassination of President Trump. I highly doubt this would change that.

Mr. Kirk recently made statements attributed to him on guns — “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

I disagree with him on this. We are well past “some gun deaths.” And considering that gun violence is a leading cause of death for children, this is irresponsible and not rational. Far too often, debates and arguments about guns happen in the abstract. In his statement, “some gun deaths” is just an abstract idea. It is not enfleshed or embodied. Every single gun death is the death of an actual person, with a name, a story, a family, and more. I wonder if he would see things differently knowing that he was personally affected and it was no longer an abstract argument, but rather something very concrete and real. It’s easy to…