We have become numb to tragedy. Our society is angry, and not for one specific reason. Violence and hatred towards our fellow man have become all too commonplace. Many take it as a right to defend and protect, others take it as we are on the decline and our future is bleak. Either way, something is broken, and nobody has the solution to fix it.

First and foremost, what is the solution to dealing with a mass shooting? Many of the pundits on the talk news shows and social media will give a glib response because nobody has the willingness or fortitude to challenge this controversy. If you follow the money, however, you will see why.

It isn’t just the NRA that should be blamed. Many other corporations are backing the right to bear arms. However, the NRA is willing or has always taken the heat for the abuse of guns of any kind. What about the manufacturers? The manufactures of the AR-15 Rifle are back in business after the law expired in 2004. They reclassified the gun as a “modern sporting rifle,” and the industry took it a ran with it like it was a shiny new tinker toy. My only concern is the labeling of a rifle solely designed to kill in mass quantities as sporting equipment. It has also become, according to the New York Times, “most beloved and most vilified rifles.” The current style of the AR-15 Rifle has always been altered to be used for hunting. Yet, there are adaptions an owner can purchase to modify this weapon for various assault uses. And as a person that does not hunt nor lived in a family of hunters, I have no clue if this rifle is used with the intent it was manufactured.

The only knowledge an average American has is what is presented by the media after a mass shooting. Weeks, and yes in some cases days later the argument is unresolved, and the citizens of the country carry on like is another day in their neighborhood, because we all live in a NIMBY society. The gun laws of this nation come up for debate every time a mass shooting happens, well not always. There have been times it was reported and lost in the headlines of the shenanigans of Washington DC.

So here we are at the end of the school year, and many people are collectively sighing because their son, daughter, husband, wife, cousin, or best friend did not become another statistic in this horrible reality. Too many in America will not even learn about the recent shootings because life has their attention elsewhere. Mothers and fathers searching for baby formula, looking for that extra fifty dollars to fill up their gas tank to get to the store to find the baby formula, and the risk of exposure to others with COVID. I don’t know if these can be considered kitchen table issues, as I see it, they are more like humanitarian issues.

Our country is falling apart at the seams. As we slowly try to find our new normal, do we want mass shootings to be that once again? For all it is worth, the pandemic might have killed over a million people but saved hundreds of children when their schools closed, and they went to online learning. Far too often we look to solve a problem because it is staring us in the face, but as soon as it is diverted then we fall short and back to the same old, same old.

The irony of the Republican Governor of Texas banning abortion to the extent that women and men will be accused of murder and then allow an 18-year-old boy to purchase an assault rifle and kill innocent children is something many Americans cannot wrap their thoughts around. Why can he not agree that a young man barely old enough to vote, not able to purchase many other items at his age can buy a killing machine? I do pose this thought. If that spineless boy was driving an automobile and drove down a dozen or so children in a schoolyard, would he take on the automobile industry or would he change the laws so no one could get a car into the schoolyard?