BBE: The Final Wednesday in May

Wednesday, May 23. What should have been a regular school day on the brink of summer unfolded into a nightmare as a community in Uvalde, Texas, was witness to the third deadliest school shooting in American History. This horrifying mass shooting resulted in the death of 19 students and 2 teachers at Robb Elementary School. The shooter was a man named Salvador Ramos, who had formerly been a student at the elementary school. Following a dispute with his grandmother, which ended with him shooting her in the face and stealing her car, the shooter entered the elementary school with intent to kill innocent children using an AR-15 style rifle, which he had purchased legally. One would think that such a horrifying act of senseless violence, especially given that it was primarily perpetrated against 4th grade elementary students and it was not the first of its kind, would wake the country up to its failures in gun control and inspire legislation to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. America has long since been known to struggle with gun violence, and this problem seems to have only increased over the last two decades. Recently, npr published a jarring article titled “America has seen at least 601 mass shootings so far in 2022”. This information is in line with recent social media posts that have claimed there have been more mass shootings than days this year. Unfortunately, as with many serious issues in this country that go unaddressed and uncorrected, the most marginalized people are the ones who suffer the most. Somehow, there are enough adults with power who feel so entitled to their “second amendment rights” that this country is willing to sacrifice countless lives, including those of literal children, in order to appease them. To understand the gravity of this situation, to read that an adult man walked into fourth grade classrooms with an AR-15 telling children “You’re all gonna die” and opening fire on them, to hear that an 11 year old, Miah Cerrillo, had to smear the blood of her classmates on herself and pretend to be dead amongst the corpses of her friends, and still not be in favor of serious gun control in this country is nothing less than unforgivable. The response, or lack thereof, by people, politicians and the general population to an event of this magnitude can be used as a metric for the ethical standing of our society, and currently, we appear morally bankrupt. It is not just a lack of empathy, an act of negligence or even pure selfishness that has been displayed by the response of many adults, primarily right-wing conservatives, to this tragedy in our country. No, it is something much more insidious than we are told to think. To stare in the face of such tragedy and attempt to rationalize the senseless murder of school children, children who were just a day out from summer break, children whose lives will never be the same, is to become completely devoid of humanity. And this will not remain an individual failure. Because as time after time, and shooting after shooting, we allow this ridiculous game to be played; soon we all will be damned to that same fate. I was young, but I remember some of the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The fear, the debates, the classroom shooter drills, but now I see proof of the inaction. And less than a full 10 years later, we stand in the same rubble of a far-too-similar tragedy, full of anger and fears and a barrage of questions, but only two matter: “At what point did this rubble become our home?” and “Will we realize what has happened and take a stand before it is too late?”