.
I really, really really really didn’t want to write about this.
For one simple reason. I am not an American.
Things here, North of the border are so very different, that it seems easy to judge, criticize and question. I am well aware of that.
But I’ve been thinking about this since the news came out yesterday.
If you’ve been living under a rock, yesterday in Uvalde Texas, a recently turned 18 years old young man shot his ”annoying” grand mother before walking into a primary school armed like a soldier, and going through a killing spree.
Nineteen innocent children died, along two teachers.
Sadly, I think that a lot of people just got numb, when reading about these news from the U.S.A. And it should have the exact opposite effect.
People should get furious, people should seek change.
As I mentionned, I say that with a bit of salt, because I live in one of Canada’s most violent cities, and I don’t fear for my life at all.
But back to Uvalde.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I’ve read, the first reply to the mass shooting wasn’t to consider heavy weapon restrictions. No. Apparently, the good thing to do would be to make sure that teachers had guns to react in these situations.
What??
Is it just me, or is that just like putting a target on teachers’ backs. If I was a wannabe school mass murderer, knowing that the teachers have weapons, I’d go for the teachers first. And then go on with my bloody plan.
So, unless you also train every teacher to be a dang snipper, I don’t get the point.
Why not focus on the fact that it is absurd that a teenager can go shopping for guns that the Canadian army probably can’t afford at the moment, and get hundreds of ammunitions, while he never could get to drink a drop of liquor, or vote?
I get that we (Americans and Canadians) don’t have the same values… But I think that common sense should be universal.
You want to keep your right to own guns? That’s perfectly fine with me. But do you really need the right to own every weapon known to mankind, as soon as the age of 18??
The yearly amount of people killed by guns in the U.S. is comparable to a war-toll. And that’s just your people killing… Your people! So basically a genocide we’re all watching on TV.
It is sad. And I’d like to understand.
I really try to.
I love your country, and many of your people. You’ve given so much to the world, why aren’t you able to work on some obsolete laws, to save lives?
I really crave answers.
Cyranny's Cove 
Don’t get me started. Unfortunately I’ve started elsewhere and upset a few people already.
But come on. When is enough enough?
Fuck your constitution. This has nothing to do with what the founding fathers envisaged, and you know it. Fuck your gun shops and your gun shows and your firing ranges. Fuck your Hollywood bullshit and Dirty Harry and Charlton Heston. Fuck the NRA. Fuck your ‘rights’.
Do something about it.
Let’s not have some lengthy and pointless debate about what constitutes a ‘responsible gun owner’. We cant even agree about who might be sufficiently responsible to look after a cat.
Virtually nobody needs a gun.
And as for arming school teachers ….…. is there really any point in even discussing things with people who think that will solve the problem?
Please. These are your children. These are your nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters. How much are you willing to sacrifice for them? If the answer is not, ‘almost anything’ then there is little hope. If one small, grossly misunderstood, so called ‘freedom’ has to be sacrificed to save one child I would have thought you would do so without hesitation.
The western world look to the USA for leadership. I too am willing to get down on my hands and knees and beg you to show some. Not after the next school massacre, or the one after that. Do it now.
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It infuriates me that people actually think the solution is to arm teachers instead of, oh, I don’t know, make it harder for unhinged maniacs to obtain weapons of mass destruction!!! My god, you become a teacher because you love knowledge and learning and you love interacting with children, NOT because you want to engage in military FUCKING combat. Making schools safer does not equal adding more guns. The audacity of the gun cults in this country! They refuse to change because it inconveniences them, so more people suffer and die. I hate it here. The radical in me says burn every gun shop to the ground, but what would that solve? I don’t know. I’m completely lost.
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I wrote a poem on my blog today trying to process my grief and anger. It’s so hard to keep watching this…and then send our babies to school with fingers crossed they are the lucky ones.
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You choke me up, I wrote about this yesterday and you took the words from my mouth that I can’t say anymore because I am so tired of repeating the same thing and seeing the same thing happen again and again and again in our country. I am incensed! And the only reason it doesn’t come out in my blog post is because I am done debating people and I don’t want to have to!! Plus I need to write my fiction to keep me sane amidst this madness. So thanks for voicing my heart and please know that there are many Americans that believe like you do! But our voices get drowned out time after time after time!!!
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This is such a horrific thing to have happened. Last night the PBS had a feature on all the children killed. Picture after picture came up and some information about the child and what they were like and what they did in their lives. I was sobbing by the time it ended. And for me the absolutely SCANDALOUS thing is the the Governor of Texas only recently made it possible for kids (18 is still a kid in my books)to get any gun without a license or background check or any gun training . What the EFF is that about? And I would like to see him acknowledge that this was a mistake but nope. Nothing!!!
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