I had a very busy month the last couple of weeks. Yes, you read that right. I had more things going on in April than there were days in April! Some of them resulted in more than a few hilarious moments and were more than blog-worthy. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to write about any of them.
Last week there was an unsettling piece in the local news. Four and a half years almost to the day after the Tree of Life shootings added Pittsburgh the list of cities that had hosted mass shootings, jury selection finally began for the trial of the man seen on camera, walking into a local synagogue and shooting 13 people, 11 fatally, while they were attending Saturday morning services. Four and a half years those families had to watch other families of victims of violence find some solace and maybe even some closure from crimes that happens years after the massacre that took their loved ones. Are we so jaded by killing we can take our good old time seeking justice?
During those 4-1/2 years over 1,900 mass shootings have happened in the US (I'm using the definition of mass shooting is one where 4 people excluding the shooter are killed or injured in a single incident.), 53 in April. Perhaps the most heinous was one of the most recent occurring on April 29 when 5 people were killed after asking a neighbor to stop shooting his gun in the front yard in Cleveland, Texas.
After each of the 1,940 mass shootings in the last 4-1/2 years, calls for gun control have been made and successfully opposed in the name if the Second Amendment. You remember that one.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Some day, somebody from the NRA can tell me how killing 5 of your neighbors because they asked for some quiet, or killing 11 of them while they worshipped their God, is "necessary to the security of a free State."
I'll try to find some hilarious anecdotes for next week.
Too often we are defined by the work we do. Is that because we surround ourselves with work friends? We owe to ourselves and our closest contacts to see that our "loved ones" truly are our loved ones. In the most recent Uplift! we talk about why.
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