Newton School Kids, Those who Came Before you and Those who will Come After you, I am Sorry

Since the Newton shooting in Connecticut, I’ve been enraged and heartbroken for the children who lost their lives, the children who survived, all of their families, the school, the community, and for this country.

Trying to make sense of a tragedy this heinous is impossible. Tiny lives were ripped from tiny bodies. Those parents have to bury those tiny bodies. How? How are they expected to bury their little people in tiny coffins and make sense of an inexplicable loss of this magnitude? No matter how much therapy the tiny people who survived have and every parent, how will they ever learn to live with it? How will they ever feel safe in school, in life, in everything again? This unspeakable tragedy must be spoken about and action must be taken.

How many more shootings and young lives have to be stolen from young bodies and minds before we take action?

I think about the thousands of children who came before the Newton school kids and all who will come after them, and I ask myself three questions, why is extinguishing life acceptable in our nation? Are we simply conditioned to take it? How do you look at a group of smiling, hopeful, innocent children, take out your gun and shoot their tiny bodies and watch them tumble to the ground and die?

What are we doing to diagnose and save the mentally ill so it doesn’t get to this point? Why is it so damn easy to get a gun? Why aren’t people required to undergo intensive therapy, background checks and more?

I don’t care how many people say, “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” because that’s not true. We need serious gun control in this country. Not later, NOW, RIGHT NOW.

Tootsie Cleveland said it best: “Every moment of silence is another moment not seized by doing something. We love our moments of silence in this country. We collect them like badges. We love our teddy bear memorials, and our piles of flowers left for the dead at the scene of the crime. We love to feel pain, and weep and moan, and cry out for the dead. We love to leave notes, and weep, and leave gifts and flowers at the gate. We love to watch them pile up and then wilt. We love it so much, apparently, that we will do nothing to prevent having to do it over and over and over and over and over again. So. Ok. Mourn and weep. Leave stuffed animals in the rain. But remember that piety in the face of preventable tragedy is hypocrisy. And it leaves me, for one, perfectly cold.”

The election proved that there has been a shift in consciousness. Please take action NOW, RIGHT NOW:

Now IS the time to Demand A Plan to End Gun Violence. Sign this petition and share it until your fingertips are bleeding from typing.

Katie Schwartz

Newton School Kids, Those who Came Before you and Those who will Come After you, I am Sorry

Newton School Kids, Those who Came Before you and Those who will Come After you, I am Sorry

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