Mass shootings: You don't really care.

Many of you won’t read this. That’s fine. At least I will know I spoke out and spoke up.  

Let me start by saying my wife and son are public school educators and I have a grandchild attending elementary school. I’m not sure what my reaction would be if I received news of a school shooting from one of their schools. These “events” are horrific and tragic, and the survivors will never forget this moment in their life. As we end what was Mental Health Awareness Month, we know this event will forever be an emotional scar on the minds of the parents, and teachers and students who survived.

School shooting and mass shootings have become too normal. We hope they don’t happen but know they do. We should not have to live like this. Whether it’s a school or a grocery store, American citizens of all ages should not have to live in constant fear.

We should be able to go to the store without the fear of being gunned down. We should be able to just be outside on a walk or shopping without the fear of gang violence erupting around us.

We should be able to send our children and grandchildren to school without the fear of them being gunned down.

But we can’t.

What’s troubling is our response to these horrific events. When these “events” occur, the media and the politicians can’t wait to get the word out to the public. They never wait for the details of the event because the details don’t matter.  The spin is always about controlling an inanimate object, a gun. The politicians pull out the talking points from their file cabinet and run to the closet microphone to feign anger and disgust (like the anger and disgust they faked the last time we had an “event”) and continue to blame that evil gun.

They blame the gun lobbies, who probably slip them a few dollars from time to time. They blame Republicans and the NRA. They demand more legislation that would control gun sales, background checks and the like. They promise this time we’ll get the deal done and protect the children. A few will try to get things done, but after 2-3 months when the chatter dies and the public has moved on to the next new shiny object, the politicians move on too.

What they don’t look at or want to speak about is how did this happen? How was this person able to enter the school? Where was the resource officer? How was this person able to fire his weapon undeterred, outside of the school without being stopped?  Why did the law enforcement wait over an hour to enter the school hearing the shooter firing his weapon inside the school? How can the FBI investigate parents who have issues with their school board but fail to investigate a person who made it clear on social media what his intentions were?

Why don’t we have a serious discussion about this person’s mental health?

We continue to ask the easy questions, point fingers, beat our chest, and use what should be solemn events to make political statements. We take as gospel the words of athletes, Facebook memes, and Hollywood actors instead of doing our own research and listening to varying opinions and facts concern the event. We can’t wait to blame this group or that group. We can’t wait to show how much we care and are thinking about those who are experiencing this tragedy as long as you don’t pray for them. As we continue to signal to all our friends on social media how virtuous we are and how much we care, nothing changes.

Meanwhile in cities like Chicago, the body count increases. No one cares and nothing changes.

Babies are killed in this city every day. Men, women, old, young, and everyone in between are being murdered every day, and although the violence does not discriminate, colored people are the ones feeling the brunt of these daily acts of violence.  And no one cares and nothing changes.

The politicians call this a gun violence problem. People can’t go to the store without being robbed or shot. Kids can’t walk to school without the possibility of being shot. Everyone in the city lives in fear. There’s no outrage, no politicians running to get in front of a camara to display their anger over these events that occur every day. A city that is more like a war zone gets no one attention, but the people in Ukraine get all our attention.

I can’t take your sadness seriously, if you are not just as enraged about the daily deaths that occur in cities like Chicago every day. I can’t believe your tears are real if you’ve never spoke up or spoke out about the violence that happens in the inner cities every day. I can’t believe you want to solve these issues when you only speak up about mass shootings in suburban areas but mass shootings in urban areas aren’t even on your radar of concern.

Here's the problem. We’re not addressing the right issues. Instead of looking at facts and understanding that evil people exist as do mental health issues, we try to place the blame on this group or that group. Until we address the illegal trafficking of guns and drugs into the inner cities and address the gang problem, cities like Chicago will continue to deteriorate into third world countries and resemble war torn nations.  

In Chicago, the issue isn’t guns, it’s gangs. It’s cartels and drug dealers bringing in illegal weapons so their people can protect their “product.” It’s bad people doing bad things just to survive, and it’s creating a growing group of people who live as if violence is just a part of everyday life. We are creating a group of people who think violence is the way to solve all their problems.

Regarding mass shootings we talk about, but do not act upon the fact that mental illness could be the cause for such violence. It’s not hard to arrive at that conclusion. To wake up and decide that today, you are going to arm yourself and go to a nearby school or store and shoot everyone there, screams of a mental health issue. Mass shooting are connected to some sort of mental health issue, just as the murders in Chicago are connected to gang violence. It may seem simplistic, but I believe if we address the mental health crisis in our country, we would be able to slow down the rise of and destructive forces of gangs and mass shootings.

We continue to speak about the gun and what type of gun it was and why someone needs a gun like that. We never consider the fact that evil people will use whatever they can to kill especially if their desire to kill is bathed in some kind of mental illness. Cars have been used in mass killings as have knives. We never get to the root cause which most of the time is a mental health issue. From what I have read it seems that people who do these things, do a pretty good job of making people aware of what they plan to do. In my opinion, this sounds like a cry for help. He may have posted, “I’m going to shoot up a school” but what he was really saying was “Someone, please stop me before I shoot up a school”.

We’re not listening.

Finally, I need to point out that many people were up in arms a few weeks ago regarding the leak of the draft opinion by the Supreme Court regarding Roe v Wade. I saw a lot of videos and heard a lot of people lamenting the fact they would not be able to kill their babies in the womb if this ruling is overturned.

People are openly stating how they are “grooming” your children and helping them discover who they “really are” without your consent or knowledge. Now you people are saying how much you love children and don’t understand why “we” aren’t doing anything to protect them. Well, the “we” you should be speaking to is our government, and I believe they can and long ago, should have addressed and solved the issues of gang violence, abortion rights and mass shootings, but they won’t.

Why not?

Because it’s part of their election playbook. These events and talking points will become election meat fed to a public hungry for answers. The politicians, especially those who have been in office far too long, will make promises they have no intention of keeping and lie to your face until you vote for them. Then their loyalty will go back to those lobbyists who line their pockets with millions and you, and your vote once again won’t matter.

The insanity of politics in our country is enough to cause any person to have a serious meltdown. The things people want to teach our children, trying to have us believe that up is down and down is up, that it’s okay for a man to be woman of the year or compete in women’s sports.

We’re supposed to believe that high gas prices are Putin’s fault and part of the pain we must endure so we can become less dependent on fossil fuels. And that’s supposed to make sense when we know there is no plan in place to move to electric powered vehicles once the price of gas is $6.00 per gallon and up. We’re supposed to believe that mask work if you’re 6 feet apart and have been double vaxxed with a booster.

We’re supposed to believe black lives matter but don’t discuss how abortions kill more black babies every year, than any other people group and black men, women and children die daily in the streets due to black-on-black crime. We’re supposed to believe any death of a black person is because of white supremacy.

Help this make sense to me.

As I said most of you won’t get this far and at this point, I don’t care. I have children and grandchildren who hopefully will be around for a long time in this country, but I have to say the pressure is real and I can’t imagine the type of world they are going to be living in if we the people don’t get off our ass and get this country moving in the right direction. The direction is one where we the people work at the local level to take control of our lives. Where we the people, reduce the overreach of the federal government in our lives. Where we the people, locally, protect our schools, our children and provide help to those with mental health issues.

We the people must do this regardless of all the things the MSM and our federal government do to keep us divided. We must become strong communities accepting differences, sharing ideas, living honorably, and standing on the foundation set by our Constitution. If you don’t want to participate in making America the greatest country in the world, then I recommend you pack your bags and find a country to live in where you think it can be so much better for you. Plane tickets are expensive, but flight leave every day.

I’m not crazy, but seeing people fall for the MSM lies repeatedly and not take the time to think for themselves about issues, is getting hard to swallow. Mental health issues need to be at the top of the list of things we address seriously in this country. Many of these mental health issues were created by the pandemic. Some people talked about mental health issues but not many people did anything to address the issue.

Expect more “events” and expect a repeat of events that happened 2 years ago as we get closer to the mid-term elections, things like making a big deal about monkeypox. The media and the government will use the same playbook if their manipulation of we the people continues to work.

As I close, I remind you, I’m not here to change your mind, I just want you to think for yourself.