Another Mass Shooting in a Nation Without Hope

A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope. 

A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.

A nation that says that soothing the paranoia of grown-ups is more important than safeguarding the lives of children is a nation without hope.

A nation that says that fattening the bottom lines of stockholders is more important than saving the lives of children is a nation without hope.

A nation that says pacifying gun lobbyists is more important than protecting children is a nation with no hope at all.

A nation that has decreed that cowards are allowed to own as many guns as they’d like, no matter what,  because a two-hundred-year-old document which has been amended many times says they can, is a nation where nobody is safe.

It is a nation where no child will be safe at any kind of school. It is a nation where little children will be shot through the church windows as they attend daily Mass at the Catholic parochial school. It is a nation where children studying at study hall will be slaughtered at their Protestant private school.  It is a nation where a teenager eating lunch on the grass will be shot in the head and chest before she can look up at public school. Where a gunman will chain the doors shut and murder thirty  students in their classrooms at college.  Where a boy suffering from psychosis can get a gun as an early Christmas present, and use it to shoot up his school before Christmas break, even though that school has been drilling to prevent a school shooting for years.

A nation that has ruled that paranoid men can stock up on guns and ammunition for a revolution that never happens, is a nation where we can’t celebrate holidays, because a first grade class will be slaughtered just before Christmas and they’ll never get to open their presents.  Because an expelled student can murder nineteen schoolmates on Valentine’s Day and they’ll never get to find love. Because a conspiracy theorist can gun down families at an Independence Day parade, and they’ll never get to see the fireworks.

A nation that has decided that the right to a gun is more important than a right to life, is a nation where white supremacists will always terrorize their neighbors of a different race. Because it’s a nation where a racist wanting to target his Latin American neighbors can kill twenty-three shoppers at a Walmart. Where another racist making a Twitch stream can gun down ten Black people at another grocery store. Where a third racist can murder nine Black people going to church on Sunday. Where yet another racist can gun down his Jewish neighbors as they celebrate Shabbat.

If our nation has decided that people have a right to as many guns as they like, then nobody has a right to anything else.

In a country this saturated with firearms, we have no right to life, because our lives can be taken from us at any moment. If we have no right to life, we have no right to liberty or the pursuit of happiness, because we can’t have those without a life.

If you can be shot outside a polling place, you don’t have a right to vote, because a dead person can’t vote.

If you can be shot at a wedding, then you don’t have a right to marry, because a dead person can’t marry.

If you can be shot by a police officer making a mistake, then you don’t have a right to due process, because a dead person can’t file a writ of habeas corpus.

If you can be shot at a protest, then you don’t have a right to free speech.

If you can be shot while pregnant, then you don’t have reproductive rights.

If you can be shot at school, you don’t have a right to an education.

If you can be shot at church, you don’t have freedom of religion.

If you can be shot at home, your home is not your castle.

If you are constantly in danger of being shot, then you can’t have anything else.

A nation where no one can have anything, is a nation without hope.

That is who we choose to be.

That’s why there was another mass shooting today. That’s why there’ll be another before long.

Because we choose to be a nation without hope.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary,
and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.