Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Thirty One Reasons

(Hats off to Ambulance Driver for his eloquence.)

Thirty one reasons to tell your loved ones how you feel about them. Not tomorrow. Right now.

Thirty one reasons to pray for the souls of the dead.

Thirty one reasons to hold their families in your heart tonight. Their pain is only beginning.

Thirty one reasons to be sickened whenever someone calls this a senseless tragedy. It's not a tragedy, it's an abomination. And it is senseless only in that people allowed themselves to be told, allowed themselves to believe that it can't happen here.

Thirty one more reasons to believe that no place is entirely safe, and no laws will ever change that.

Thirty one reasons to teach your children how to fight back. How to stand on their own. How to hold on to everything that is precious to them with every fiber of their being. How to live.

Thirty one reasons to believe in monsters. The monsters don't carry signs. They don't live in caves, with signs that say There Be Dragons Here. And they don't care about our laws.

Thirty one reasons I will have to snuff my daughter's innocence early in her life and teach her that there are bad people who will hurt her if she allows it.

And thirty one more reasons to hate the people who make that necessary.

Thirty one reasons to shout your fury to the heavens.

Thirty one reasons to turn that anger toward the people who denied the innocent the means to defend themselves. Nurture it. Feed it until it is white hot, but dole it out in cold and measured doses. Let it be the righteous fire that fuels you as you demand the right to protect you and yours.

Thirty one reasons that gun laws do not work.

Thirty one reasons to wonder if such a thing would have happened at say, Kennesaw State University.

Thirty one reasons to vote against any politician who favors any measure of gun control.

Thirty one reasons to say not like that.

As if you needed any more reasons.

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