The violence needs to end

Last week I was lying in bed trying to decide if I wanted to get up or go back to sleep.

Hubby got up and turned on the television. The screen was filled with police cars. Red and blue lights flashed as the information strip at the bottom of the screen proclaimed that there were eight dead from a mass shooting at FedEx in Indianapolis. Not much later I learned that the shooter was assumed to be a 19 year old male who had shot and killed himself.

Nineteen. Think about what it is to be 19. At that point in life the choices are endless. They could fall in love, get married and have a child that grows up to be president. They could get a better job and finally move out of home. They could write a bestselling book. They could cure the common cold. They could invent a new line of take out soft drink containers and plastic bags  that would decompose before they landed in someone’s yard. They could do anything. The possibilities are endless. The world is at their feet.

The shooter threw all that away when he pointed his weapon and pulled the trigger. Can any of you tell me when a civilian has shot and killed someone that it solved whatever problem the shooter had?

I didn’t think so.

The victims had friends and family who loved them. Their lives will never be the same. For the loved ones the date will be forever burned into their minds as the day their world turned upside down and their loved one died.  All of the ramifications from this shooting may never be known. 

Those people who died had plans for the day. I think it is fair to say that not one of them went to work that morning planning to explore all that the afterlife has to offer.

We offer our thoughts and prayers because we don’t know what else to do. There will be the usual calls for gun control. It won’t happen. We love our guns too much. There has to be a major change in society’s values before we will even think of any type of gun control.

I would love for the National Rifle Association, which was founded way back in 1871, to offer some valid suggestions as to how to stop this senseless violence. What we, as a nation, are doing clearly doesn’t work.

There must be a way for people to settle their grievances without the use of violence. Mass shootings have ceased to be as shocking as they once were. Another young person shot up a facility, more people died. We hardly notice. We wring our hands and wonder what this world is coming to. We send up a quick prayer before changing the station to an old rerun of Gilligan’s Island. 

In a week or so the screen will once again fill with the images of yet another young man who has settled his grievances with a gun. We will talk about how something needs to change, We may send up a prayer. Then we will change the station and watch yet another rerun of Gilligan’s Island.