Payment

My daughter was in high school when the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida happened.

My daughter was in elementary school when the shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut happened. 

Literally hundreds of school shootings have taken place since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999; 14 of them mass shootings (4 or more victims) ending the lives of 169 children. Children!

And yet, little to nothing has been done. Will it take the death of the children in the families of these elected officials, of these lobbyists, of these gun organizations and manufacturers, in order to create change? Are the words in our constitution written in 1787, originally created with different intentions and before the weapons available today were conceived, more valuable than the lives of our children? And as for politicians that stand proudly behind those words, would they continue to do so if payment of some sort were not involved?

If there was no benefit to them, in position or money, would they continue to claim our forefathers intended things to go this way?

I don't claim to have the answers to these monumental issues. What I do know, is that as a parent, the death of children stabs at my soul. No, I don't know them or their families and many of these incidents take place in towns far from my own. It doesn't change the fact that children have died while at school--a place meant to keep them safe as they grow into the adults this world so desperately needs. 

[MEMORIAL DAY HONORS THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR LIVES IN BATTLE.]