Published: 2023-03-31 07:10 |
Category: Comment | Tags: gun violence, politics, shooting, school shooting, murder
School Shootings
Another week in the US has another school shooting. As of writing, that is 13 fatal incidents on school grounds since January 1, 2023. Congress has no interest in doing anything. The representative from the Tennessee district where the shooting occurred has given up any veneer of caring what happens.
I'm a teacher. I go to schools every day even though gun violence is now the leading cause of death in children and more and more is happening in schools. America thinks it can invent itself out of violence rather than making violence harder. But it's not laws or gun-specific reforms that will make a bigger difference.
From the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security
It's lobbying.
Millions upon millions of dollars go into Congress with no accounting and no oversight to fight for special interests over safety. With an unending flow of money, there is no real incentive for anyone in Congress - in either party, in either house - to put citizens above office. Both sides are equally culpable for the continued murder of children and teachers in schools because it isn't politically advantageous to do something.
Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black eloquently addressed our lack of empathy for the dead in his five-sentence opening prayer on Tuesday:
Eternal God, we stand in awe of You. Lord, when babies die at a church school, it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers. Remind our lawmakers of the words of the British statesman Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
Lord, deliver our Senators from the paralysis of analysis that waits for the miraculous. Use them to battle the demonic forces that seek to engulf us.
We pray in Your powerful Name. Amen.
John Stewart is a little more blunt.
Children dying is not a political issue.