Reading time – 2:32; Viewing time – 3:51 . . .
There is something peculiar about we human beings, in that we often don’t really “get it” unless we relate events to ourselves. For example, when we see the devastation of a hurricane in Houston, we don’t fully understand and have to see the suffering up close and personal to begin to imagine what it would be like for ourselves if we were in those circumstances. That’s what it takes for us to “get it.”
March For Our Lives – Chicago
So it is with March For Our Lives, as most of us have not been directly touched by gun violence. The Parkland community, all the people of New Town and Aurora and San Bernardino and Orlando and Las Vegas do get it because they’ve lived it. Here’s how you can start to get it:
- If you have a child or a grandchild,
- if you know someone who is a school kid, or
- if you ever were a kid,
Click me for the Sun-Times story
then imagine someone with an AR-15 showing up and firing over 100 bullets in 6 minutes 20 seconds and killing and maiming dozens of kids you know. Just imagine the hallway in your high school that seemed so ordinary; then suddenly someone shows up and sprays bullets from his assault rifle into your friends and maybe into you and you’re lying in the blood.
Are you starting to get it yet?
Left column has names of kids killed this year. The reverse side is entirely filled with the names of the rest of the kids killed this year.
At the Chicago March For Our Lives, all the presenters were students. Here is what they want you to know.
“We call BS” – Emma Gonzalez – Click and watch the video
They are sick deep into their souls from the murders of their friends and family members. Their pain is etched into their faces and they suffer every day.
In case you’re white, they want you to understand that black and brown skin is not bullet proof and that they feel the agony of danger and loss just like you would.
They want you to know that they will out-live you and they will vote in huge numbers. Further, they will not stop until they get the safety they want for themselves, for their little brothers and sisters and for their children to come.
Some say enough is enough, but that isn’t right because there is no “enough” bullet-riddled children. There is only the reality of the suffering and dying that has no 
purpose. There are the suicides that are made so easy by the presence of a gun. There is the insanity that we tolerate only because it hasn’t come close enough to ourselves to feel it.
But it probably came close enough to your heart in Parkland, FL. And at Sandy Hook Elementary School when you found out those little 6 year old bodies had multiple bullets ripped through them. And at Columbine.
You probably “get it” because you were a kid once. You remember the classes and the hallways and you knew who the brooding, angry kid was. Maybe you can imagine that kid coming to school to wreak his vengeance for his imagined wrongs – maybe wrought on you just because you happened to be in the hallway between classes.
For our legislators: Don’t even think about offering thoughts and prayers or weasel-words. Get on the right side of history or start updating your résumé, because these people are going to send you home.
By the way, in the 17th school shooting in the first 80 days of this year – that’s one every 4 days – a kid shot two students at Great Mills High School in Maryland five days ago. One of them was a 16 year old girl the shooter knew. She died on Thursday. She could have been your daughter. She could have been you.
Now you “get it.” It’s time for sweeping change.
All photos from March For Our Lives – Chicago, March 24, 2018.
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we’re on a path to continually fail to make things better. It’s my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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