Today's tragedy has touched all of us. I doubt you're going to find anyone who truly believes themselves unaffected by the horrible tragedy in Connecticut. What really pisses me off is how people don't take the time to sit down and think about it. I mean, holy shit...18 kids died. They were children. Remember when you were a young one? When I was that age, my biggest worry was which Ninja Turtle I'd be pretending to be during recess. What was your biggest care? You didn't have bills, you didn't have a goddamned thing to be worried about. Now imagine you having your little kid bullshit worries, but instead of heading to recess you were shot to death. Or the kids around you got shot to death. Or your teacher was shot to death.
Can you picture that?
I fucking can't.
I can't fathom it. It bugs me, as someone who is very empathetic toward people, I can not wrap my brain around how surreal it is. I know I'm upset about it, but I literally can't wrap my brain around how upsetting the whole event it. It's awful. Like, super fucking terrible. It breaks my heart to think of the parents, to think of the families, the communities. Someone lost a son, a daughter, a mother, a father, a best friend, a worst enemy. People that could have been the next Gandhi, or the next Hitler.
That's a shitload of lost potential. For better or for worse, we lost a lot of history.
On Facebook and Twitter, the first thing I saw was shit like "We need more gun control," and "Don't blame guns, guys." Get the fuck over yourself. People fucking died today.
And I get it, honestly. If you believe in gun control: This is a perfect reason why we need stricter laws. If you think this gun control stuff doesn't stop crime at all: It makes sense to be defensive. But for the love of god, save your fights.
If you were standing next to a father who just lost his perfect little daughter, would you be telling him that it's ok, guns didn't kill her? Would you remind him that it was some asshole that just shot his daughter full of holes, and not some magically sentient gun walking around like the fucking mops from Fantasia? If you saw a little boy crying because he didn't understand why he just watched his troublemaking buddy bleed out, would you explain why Congress needs to step in so stuff like this doesn't happen to anyone else, because, y'know, to a child, knowing that it won't happen again will probably make the trauma of what he just saw seem a little better?
My heart absolutely aches, but it doesn't ache enough. I wish I could be there in some way for the parents, the families, the community. But I can't. I'll sign a petition, I'll vote on a law in one direction or the other. I'll stand firm in my beliefs, but for now, I'm going to mourn. I'll have a chance to say whatever I want tomorrow.
Something the victims can't.
-P
