This is this post and share of my interview on LEX18 from June 2, 2022.
I’m taking the opportunity to share the interview I did with LEX18 (Lexington’s NBC affiliate) to touch on the experience of the past couple of weeks and to share some information. I want to thank the folks at LEX18 for the opportunity. I am not tagging them in this post because I am expounding on my opinion, and I have thanked them in other ways. I would also like to thank those of you who have shared the interview and my Facebook post, provided comments, or simply liked one or both posts. I was truly amazed at the response and felt supported in doing something I was quite frankly scared to do…
As I said in the interview, a switch has flipped for me… As Betsy read the details of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas my heart broke. The babies that were massacred were the ages of my son and nieces and I found myself in this spiral of fear, anger, disbelief, and conflict. In Uvalde, parents were grieving the loss of their babies, not even being to come to terms with the realization that they will never see their children grow up. Other parents were holding their children tight, so very, very tight, so thankful they were alive, not understanding the child they sent to school that morning was gone forever. Their child is replaced with one whose innocence is gone, their sense of safety stolen, and the effects of trauma to various degrees lay ahead. The families that lost their parents who were teachers or got them back because they survived will experience much the same.
I sat, thinking these thoughts, feeling angry about it. I felt fear at the thought that it could happen at my son and niece’s school. I felt such disbelief that someone could kill babies. I felt so conflicted about my belief in such unincumbered access to guns. Somewhere in that space of time, a part of me become resolute, we must do what we can to prevent the murder of our children.
I have realized that not once, not one single time did I investigate the issue of gun control legislation or how school shooters are getting access to guns. This was in part because I have steered clear of this issue because of the trauma I have experienced, but also because I have surface knowledge of a lot of the issues, and think I know a lot about them, and think my uninformed opinion is important enough to matter when it comes time to vote. I also checked a box politically and therefore fell lockstep into what I was supposed to believe according to what the talking heads said about the issues.
Today, I’m sharing the interview with LEX18 in the hopes that you will listen to the words of a man who thirty years ago sat in a classroom and witnessed people being murdered and then was held hostage. A man who has been forever changed by those events. Since that time hundreds of school shootings have occurred. That incident or any of the countless others should have rallied our nation to come together to fix the problem with gun access by those who murder children (not to mention all the other gun violence). I am a man who was so hellbent on never bending on anything that touched on gun rights. Then the children were massacred. DNA was used to identify some of their bodies. I started learning the realities of gun legislation in comparison to the scare tactics blasted on Facebook.
I would ask that you watch my interview. I would ask that you put aside your emotions about guns and do real research. I ask you to consider that while it is true that evil people do evil things and that guns are a tool they use, we cannot wipe away evil. We can do substantial things to put common-sense protections in place that do not encumber law-abiding citizens from acquiring firearms. We must also remember that a great number of people in this country enjoy firearms for hunting, or sport, or feel they need a handgun for protection. The issue of guns, gun rights, gun ownership, fear of guns, and a patriotic feeling associated with the second amendment makes this a difficult issue. The deaths of children in this country SHOULD be fostering an environment for us to put all this aside and fix issues that make all of us safer, especially our kids.
I leave you with three things:
1. Please take a real look at this issue with an open mind. Look at the data. Look at information about what federal legislation does and does not do in regard to background checks, etc. In addition, each state looks different in its gun laws. The mere fact that the laws are so varying is a problem, and there are loopholes. Look at how gun purchases and transfers happen and how they can happen by default if there are delays in background checks.
2. Consider this information: Nearly 40,000 Americans are killed by guns every year. An average of 200 Americans are shot & injured every day. Each year 1,500 minors are killed by guns and 3 million children are directly exposed to gun violence. Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed by gun homicide than residents of other high-income countries. Since 1970 there have been over 700 fatalities in school shootings and since 1999 over 311,000 students have experienced school shootings on their school campus. This is just a pull of data (all sourced) that shows the prevalence of gun violence in our country.
3..If you are like me and have decided that protecting our children is more important than hanging on to emotional, surface-level informed arguments over guns, then ACT. I am figuring out what I am going to do… Today I am posting this post. I have signed up with Moms Demand Action and Giffords.org, because both are doing things to inform and organize around fixing legislation and informing on gun issues. Contact our Senators and Representatives and tell them you have had enough, and that real change is necessary.
If you made it to the end of my post, thank you for reading. I hope you will consider what I have said, do your own research, and take action. My kid, my nieces, your kids, grandkids, and countless others… Not to mention your neighbors, friends, family, and people you don’t even know are counting on me and you to do so.
