My heart is breaking, and so should the hearts of others. My blog post last week was about the wonderful preschool graduation ceremony of our youngest granddaughter. The same day it was published we had another tragic school shooting and the killing of 10 innocent people. My words, “We had another tragic school shooting” are intentional, for this is our problem, all of us. While the politicians and many citizens debate the causes and solutions to this horrific problem, more and more children, young people, and adults continue to be sacrificed.  We should be ashamed that people in this great country of ours cannot or will not do more to fix this.

I wade gently into this debate.  It isn’t about the right to bear arms to me, it is about the right to live.  It is about the right to live in this free society without fear that when we send our children off to school or to other events that they will be safe. It is about not having to worry about when or where the next mass shooting will be. 

If we truly are the land of the free and the home of the brave, why are we as a society more concerned about the freedoms of gun owners than the freedom to live in a safe society? Where are the brave men and women who will do more than has been done to solve this major problem?

Hate and fear cannot coexist with these.

I do not propose to know the solution to this problem, and as a private citizen without any constituents depending on me, I am not required to.  But our lawmakers and politicians are required to come up with solutions to the serious problems of our society. We should hold them accountable. There do seem to be some solutions that many people can agree on, and we are all so familiar with them that they do not need to be repeated here. But for whatever reason, those solutions are still just talk.

My latest book has some solutions to our challenges.

It’s time to stop the debating and do something to begin to turn the tide before more people are murdered.  And as an individual, I do have the responsibility to do all within my power to speak the truth as I know it to be, even if becomes politicized by others. I realize this is a very divisive issue, I just don’t think it needs to be. I believe we can solve these problems together, if we will. No, it isn’t easy, but it is doable. 

Let’s move these mountains!

I fear that we are becoming numb to the problem of violence in our society.  Has it happened so much that it no longer has the same impact on us as it did in the beginning? Have we given up that we can solve this problem? Are we not better than this?

As we celebrate Memorial Day this weekend, let’s again be The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Let’s solve these problems so that our children and grandchildren, and all of us, can live in a safe society.