And, still, we do nothing

I own weapons

My family hunts

My daughters go to a school where someone showed up with a gun one day. A disturbed young woman. She did not shoot anyone thanks to the quick thinking of the then head of the Upper School

All schools in Charleston now have Resource Officers

All schools, public, private, parochial

All schools in Charleston practice active shooter drills

We never had such concerns or thoughts

We did have fire drills, tornado drills, and, it being the Cold War, nuclear bomb drills. I’m sure crouching under our desks would have been a great defense for a 10 ton hydrogen bomb coming in hot from a silo outside of Leningrad. That all seems so quaint in comparison to the reality of today’s students

I bet the children in Nashville had active shooter drills, too

I am a big believer in our Constitution

I am an even bigger believer in our Bill of Rights, those first ten amendments to that document much wiser people than I wrote to form a more perfect Union

But, something is amiss in our Union these days

I wish I knew what it was

And, none of us do

Despite what you think you know

Guns don’t kill people…people kill people

I know

But, you don’t hear much about school knifings

But, you don’t hear much about school bludgeonings

And, the media loves it

Absolutely loves it

I think it all goes back to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado

I remember Katie Couric holding hands with one of the deceased children’s fathers

Such empathy

Such integrity

It really goes back to our beginnings.

During Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1764, four men entered a school house in Pennsylvania, shot the school master and either nine or ten of his students

In 1886 right here in Charleston, a young woman killed a man during a Sunday school class at a church

We have a gruesome history of school shootings

But, it’s become more gruesome since 1999

Here is a list of the communities affected by school shootings, Columbine to today:

Columbine, Conyers, Deming, Fort Gibson, Asheville, Libson, Renton, Mount Healthy, Glendale, Carrollton, Caro, Oxnard, Detroit, El Cajon, Covington, Santee, Monroe, Mattawa, Ennis, Jackson, Carmichael, Los Angeles, Scurry, Olive Hill, New Orleans, Red Lion, Wellsboro, Lawndale, Cold Spring, Spokane, Marion, Henderson, East Greenbush, Red Lake, Farmington, Jacksboro, Reno, Chapel Hill, Northampton, Hillsborough, Cazenovia, Baily, Joplin, Nickel Mines, Cincinnati, Blacksburg, Gresham, Oroville, Cleveland, DeKalb, Stockton Springs, Larose, Littleton – again, Madison, Portsmouth, Blountville, Conway, Carlsbad, Marinette, Omaha, Seattle, Chardon, Jacksonville, Oakland, Perry Hall, Normal

Newtown, Connecticut

Taft, Santa Monica, Decatur, Sparks, Centennial, Roswell, Isla Vista, Troutdale, Manchester, Marysville, Lacey, Franklin, Richmond, Harrisburg, Roseburg, Middletown, Antigo, Townville, Bountiful, West Liberty, Columbus, Rockford, Mattoon, Rancho Tehama Reserve, Aztec, Dalton, Richmond, Italy, Benton,

Parkland, Florida

Ocala, Santa Fe, Noblesville, Dixon, Edlridge, Charlotte, Baltimore, Portland, Stone Mountain, Highlands Ranch, Mobile, Santa Clara, Jersey City, Knoxville, San Diego, Columbia, Rigby, Savannah, Philadelphia, Oxford, Houston, Washington

Uvalde, Texas

New Orleans, Little Rock, Byhalia, Clarksville, Groveport, Bismarck, Oakland, Dover, South Bend, Richfield, Newburgh, Tulsa, Tucson, Toledo, Baltimore, St. Louis, West Harford, Orlando, Clinton, Albuquerque, Tallahassee, Fuquay-Varina, Chicago, Detroit, Rochester, Newport News, Portland, Stanford, Des Moines, Middletown, New York, Pittsburgh, Waterville, Dallas, Denver

Nashville, Tennessee

I guaranty we all know someone in these places

The grandmother of a murdered Newtown student used to live in Charleston and taught music here

She moved back to Connecticut to be closer to her people after that tragedy

So many communities

So many lives

So many traumas

So many tragedies

So many thoughts

So many prayers

And, still, we do nothing

We do nothing about sensible firearms regulations

We do nothing about addressing mental health

We do nothing about making schools safer

And, we won’t after Nashville

Because we don’t

We don’t care

Literally

We don’t care

We just don’t

As a country

We say we do

All the social media feeds fill up with outrage and calls for bans on weapons and debates about mental health and blaming the [Congress] [President] [Governor] [Mayor] [Police] [Sheriff] [NRA] [this group] [that group] and pictures of anguished children and broken heart emojis and thousands of “I statements” of how this affects the poster.

As Mr. Rodgers said, “Look for the helpers”

Well, we are they

And, still, we do nothing

For three days, the news will report live from the scene and talk to the mayors, the governors, get sound bites from the Press Room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no matter who is sleeping upstairs in the Residence

We have seen this play

Absurdist theater at its finest

The left blames the right

The right blames the left

And, still we do nothing

May be we can go a week without another school shooting in America

But, I doubt it.