A few months ago, I watched the Showtime series “Active Shooter.” 8 episodes about shootings in this country, the final episode focused on Columbine. In every episode, the series reports the events of the day, married with witnesses and experts, while portraying as intimate a portrait as it possibly can of the shooter of the episode. It skews towards gun control, thankfully. Columbine (which happened in 1999) is the hallmark event in mass shootings at schools; the profiles of these subsequent active shooters, particularly the ones who murder children at their schools—men with mental illness issues, boys in a freefall disconnect from society, young people with gun permits—all held in the same gallery of the boys from Littleton. What happened on Valentine’s Day at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida? Another devastating chapter in this ongoing legacy of the wild abandon of guns. Read the tweets from the children who were going about their day at school. Force yourself to watch the videos, one of which my daughter received from her friend, in the drill position, while at the school. The terror the children and the adults who teach them must have felt. To know there is no safe place, that the halls they walk through are laden with the horror, the absolute horror. Read the NY Time’s Nicholas Kristoff’s suggestion on How To Reduce Gun Violence. To reduce mass shootings there is not one just tactic; it’s a multi-layered strategy. Obviously it begins with gun control. It also requires a galvanizing force of Americans, you and me, to collectively advocate and successfully implement solutions that encompass gun control, safety measures, mental health awareness and humanity. If the children are our future, than the time is now to ensure that future has the opportunity to flourish.
I don't want my mom to worry that I won't make it home from school. I don't want to go to school fearing that I won't make it home.
— Ruby Karp (@RubyKarp) February 15, 2018
How you can help Parkland, right now.
Patrisse Cullors: “During my years working with Black Lives Matter, I have identified with everyday superheroes: the activists and organizers who are regular people fighting for better lives for all of us.”
Fuck you, you fucking bracketing bastards.
Is your belly a bit bloated?
And now have a laugh with Gina Yashere.
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