Too Late. Again.

With his silence and tears more powerful than the words …

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years.”

“We are going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

Here’s some of what I said after another mass shootings THIS YEAR, the one in Wisconsin:

When did we lose hope?  When did all these elected officials decide that we could never again have a national discussion about assault weapons?  Even in Illinois, where I live, Governor Pat Quinn just this week renewed the call for a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, only to be greeted with the sentiment that “well, it would be good but it will never happen.”  Others criticize people who make these statements as just trying to take advantage of tragedies.  A Republican state senator criticized the Democratic governor, saying “It’s on people’s minds right now because of what happened in Colorado, and the governor wants a piece of the publicity.”

Damn right it’s on people’s minds.  That’s exactly when we need to talk about it.  Before everyone goes back to sleep and more people die. 

In that post, I link to the cartoon in the middle of Bowling for Columbine, A Brief History of the United States, and Chris Rock’s bit on bullet control as a possible solution.  Check them out.

I’ll adapt my own words from that piece here to conclude for now, until we have to talk about it again:

Because we have a gun problem embedded in a culture problem.

Don’t say that it’s too soon.

Because for kindergartners first graders and school teachers in Connecticut, it’s too late.