By now, I doubt
there’s an American who has not heard the news: 512 people shot, 58 killed, by a single gunman. We don’t know his
motive, probably never will. It seems likely that he was severely emotionally
or psychologically damaged, although his family seems unaware of any such
history. His father was once on the FBI Most Wanted list—what, if anything,
does that have to do with today’s horrific event?
On Facebook today,
the mood of the country seemed resigned to “This is the kind of country we live
in.” The only developed country that has such mass shootings—though never this
large before—on a regular basis: we average two a month. And citizens feel we
can do nothing to change it. I reject that thinking. We can and must change it.
Ten days after the
shooting of school children in Newton, Connecticut, support for stricter gun
control began to fade as the horror of that massacre faded from the public
mind. We seem to have short memories for that which is unpleasant or
uncomfortable. By ten days later, a CNN poll showed that 52% of Americans
opposed stricter gun control.
Will that happen
again? Americans right now are stunned horrified. There will undoubtedly be a
call for stricter gun control. But will it last? It seems to me we face a
choice: Do you want to take a knee with the NFL or do you want to shrug in
resignation when a man shoots over 500 people. For me, today’s event dramatizes
the choice in characters that faces our nation. While this massacre was not
racially motivated, or so we assume, it demonstrates the unleashed violence of
our culture, the violence that football players are peacefully protesting.
Change begins at
the local level, with each one of us. Will you stand silently by and shrug or
will you take a knee?
