Since the shooting at Virginia Tech
on April 16, 2007, approximately 142 have been killed or wounded on school
grounds in the U.S. And those figures only scratch the surface of the total
number of gun-related deaths in this country. Now, nine people have been gunned
down at a prayer meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. The slaughter goes on.
Innocent people are mowed down in
places of learning and houses of prayer; we wring our hands, cry, and pray.
And, we do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of people who are a threat to
themselves and others, terrorists, convicted felons, and domestic abusers. Our
legislators cut funds for mental heath care despite the near unanimous opinion
by mental health care experts that we could dramatically cut all crimes if we
put a major effort behind improving mental health care.
No one ever speaks of the rights of
people who have been murdered. Instead, the dialogue turns into a feeding
frenzy of emotions hindering and not helping tackle the root causes of this
violence. Sadly, in the case of the Charleston slaughter the root cause was
racist hatred. I am at a complete and utter loss for words. I thought, as a
nation, we had come so far, but I was wrong, so terribly wrong. We have so far
to go.
The greatest nation in the world does
not sit still while students are used for target practice by those who are
threat to society; nor do the citizens of a great nation remain silent while
people are murdered at a prayer meeting. Charleston has shown that demanding
action on the part of our elected officials to help stop these massacres is an
imperative.
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