I Cannot Let It Go

By Marilyn Moore

I just can’t let it go.  The killing of 19 children and their two teachers by an 18-year-old with an assault rifle…it was nearly four weeks ago, and I can’t let it go.  Those absolutely beautiful children, in their final resting places of individually crafted and personalized caskets…I can’t get that image out of my mind.  Backpacks, with their names, and fresh flowers, placed around the Ascent sculpture at Tower Square at 13th and P….backpacks, carried by children everywhere and of all ages, now a memorial.  I stopped there today, to remember their names, to take a photo…I was not alone.  Evidently I’m not the only one who can’t let it go….

According to some observers of the political scene, it is typical that following a mass shooting such as this that there is a great outcry, that “something must be done,” that those who oppose any restrictions on guns talk again about mental health and hardening schools, and they know that eventually the passion of the moment will fade, and the pressure to “do something” will likewise diminish.  They’re counting on me, and many others, to once again let it go.  I can’t….

Other major events in the life of this country have happened in the past four weeks; they have grabbed the headlines and the attention of 24-hour news stations.  Inflation, including the price of gasoline, is a reality, and we’re reminded of it every time we buy something, and every time we read the morning paper.  And the January 6 insurrection hearings….they are bombshell news, with the horror of that day lived over and over again as we hear the words and see the videos.  (More on that in another blog….) I understand there are many issues that clamor for our attention, mine included.  But those 19 children, and their teachers….I can’t let it go.  

It is somewhat encouraging that a joint committee of senators, ten Republicans and ten Democrats, are meeting to determine what they might agree to as a federal response to mass killings.  Predictably, they are talking about hardening schools (don’t know how that helps grocery stores), incentives for states to adopt red flag laws (but not a federal law), increasing mental health services (which is absolutely needed in this country, but not correlated with mass killings), and lengthening the background check process for gun purchasers between the ages of 18 and 21.  Evidently such proposals as a ban on assault rifles, which this country had for ten years a couple of decades ago, or limiting the purchase of assault rifles to those over the age of 21, are non-starters.  They are branded as “restricting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” and that, evidently, is that.  End of conversation. The right to life of children in a classroom is evidently not as important as the right of an 18-year-old to purchase an assault rifle…there is simply no other way to see this.  (And there’s nothing rational or consistent about 18-year-olds and assault rifles.  In some states, the age to purchase an assault rifle is 21.  In some states, an 18-year-old can purchase an assault rifle, but not a handgun.  Hard to hang a constitutional claim here when there are such disparities.  But I digress….or maybe I don’t.)

This is, of course, my perspective.  That’s what you get to do when you write a blog.  Others will claim a different perspective.  In a normal democratic process, there’s room for discussion, room for give and take, room for compromise, and then solutions are proposed…and eventually agreed to.  The work being done by the Senators right now may yield something that is helpful.  I hope so.  

And I hope that every public official whose first response to the most recent school shooting, after the obligatory thoughts and prayers, is the observation that we need to address mental health needs votes for every single piece of proposed legislation at the federal and state level that would do just that.  We could start with the provision of mental health care for every survivor of a mass shooting…and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, that means every child, every teacher, ever staff member, and every family member, mental health care of an intensity and duration as long as needed, which may be years.  I’m watching those elected office holders who say the problem is mental health services to see if they vote to approve funds for providers, funds for facilities, funds for emergency services, funds for programs, funds for schools and colleges and hospitals and prisons, every institution that comes in contact with persons who may be in need of mental health services.  That’s a long-term solution, of course….there are unfilled positions right now because there is a shortage of counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers.  In the short term, perhaps we could reconsider an 18-year-olds’s ability to purchase an assault rifle.

Today is Father’s Day.  I think of 19 fathers in Uvalde TX who will not be celebrated, and thanked, and hugged today by their children.  No handmade cards, no handprints in clay, no favorite outdoor activity…just the unending grief of a senseless and brutal death of a child.  And that will be true on every Father’s Day for the rest of each dad’s life.  I’m pretty sure they can’t let it go.  For their sake, for the sake of children and teachers and moms and dads everywhere, for the sake of the ties that bind us in community, I hope that none of us will let it go….

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