They died in vain

This recent mass shooting is a tragedy. The next mass shooting will be a tragedy.

We are sad now, and we’ll be sad the next time. Then we’ll be sad the next mass shooting after the next mass shooting.
Then all of these deaths will be in vain. Their lives and deaths will have meant nothing. And then others will die, too.
We know the future, because we know the past.
The babies died in vain.
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Dylan Hockley, 6
Madeleine Hsu, 6
Catherine Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Jesse Lewis, 6
Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace Mcdonnell, 7
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Avielle Richman, 6
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allison Wyatt, 6
Died in vain.
Principal Dawn Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach died in vain, although in her final moments, Sherlach crawled to use her body to block a door.
Teacher’s aide Anne Marie Murphy died in vain, her body covering the body of Dylan Hockley.
Lauren Rousseau and Rachel D’Avino, died trying to protect the 16 babies in their care. One little girl survived.
Victoria Leigh Soto stepped between her students and a semi-automatic weapon with a thirty-round magazine. She helped some of them escape, but died in vain with others.
Babies.
Not grown adults in the fullness of life.
Babies.
Perhaps as the mass shooting numbers inch upwards, Americans will finally pay attention. Finally demand action. Perhaps. Or perhaps not. And they will die in vain.
Perhaps one day parents will no longer have to bury their children, slaughtered at the altar of the gun industry and corporate America.
But the babies will still be dead. And you will still not remember them. And they will have died in vain.