GUN VIOLENCE PRIMER: TEAM PICTURES OF THE FUTURE

Gun violence changes the future of team pictures and school pictures.

What will they look like to survivors of school shootings when they’re older?

The kids in this picture are at the beginning of the their run through public school.

The adults are coaches and team parents supporting their kids.

What’s wrong in this picture? Absolutely nothing.

There’s a future blogger in a new hat and rugby shirt, but other than that, nothing is off kilter.

My kids are in there along with their best friend for the past twenty-five years.

One of the little girls, and best player, grew up with a dream of singing opera. She chased it all the way to New York City and back.

“You will be incredible once your voice matures at forty.”

It would have been a long, long wait. Too long.

One became a hockey star, another a wrestling champion.

Yet another became the most well-rounded sportsman, from football to wrestling to water polo to tennis.

Seventeen people in that picture showed up one day for a game and a team picture.

Then went home.

Twenty one people showed up for school in Texas one day.

None of them went home.

Baby Boomers And Millennials Against Gun Violence

Decent, concerned, parents have questions on gun violence and school shootings.

Is it the doors? The windows? Mental illness? The guns used in mass shootings? The high capacity magazines?

Or all of the above. What to do?

A close examination of law makers show baby boomers leading the investigation.

The 117th Congress — House and Senate — is the oldest, on average, of any Congress in two decades. The average age of senators in this Congress is 63.9, and the average age of a House member is 58.3. 

Their average age is baby boomer generation age, the cool kids from the 60’s and 70’s who grew up with the Vietnam War, Watergate, Nixon, and their own detached entitlement.

This is the generation who complain about the millennials’ pampered entitlement.

Go figure.

They’re also the men and women working to make America better with their good works.

Baby Boomers: Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. They’re currently between 57-75 years old (71.6 million in the U.S.)

However, you can’t make America better with good work and keep ignoring gun violence and school shootings.

On This D-Day Anniversary Of 2022, Do This:

Consider any high school picture from 1943.

How many died on D-Day? I don’t know. How many died after D-Day?

X out twenty-one faces, the number of people dead in a Texas school room.

This is a cold exercise made easier because you probably don’t know who these people are, and most have probably passed by now.

Put twenty-one Xs on the faces for twenty-one D-Day deaths and know that all of their families have memories of them for their service and their bravery.

The Greatest Generation deserves nothing less.

Now find your fourth grade class picture and do the same thing, put Xs on twenty-one faces.

The biggest difference is knowing who they are, that they’ll never see the sights you’ve seen, never felt the thrills you’ve felt, never seen a new world in a grandchild’s face.

Do the same with any team pictures you have. You know them even better.

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On D-Day young men ran into live fire for the sake of saving the world from a future shadowed by the discoveries of misguided nationalism, an unreasonable desire for more living space beyond Germany borders, and death camps.

Now ask why nineteen fourth graders and their two teachers had to face live fire in their classroom.

Will any of the survivors in the school be remembered like like D-Day veterans are celebrated?

Will this congress be remembered as draft dodgers and duty shirkers to maintain their A+ ratings from the NRA?

When high grades mean more contributions, which means they get to keep their jobs, there’s a certain tradeoff.

Look at your family pictures, your high school reunion pictures, and cross off twenty-one people.

Is that the cost of freedom when it’s your family, your friends, your classmates?

When it’s an anonymous death count, is it an easier answer?

Dear Baby Boomers and Millennials,

Come together with an answer that would make the Greatest Generation proud.

Vote. Talk about who gets your vote. If you are somebody, or think you’re somebody, talk it up. Talk up gun laws. Find the candidates with enough intestinal fortitude to do the right thing.

This is when X marks the wrong spot for any fourth grade class, any teacher, any classroom volunteer.