You can’t have missed the news. It’s everywhere, all day. 17 kids dead in yet another tragic school shooting. You can’t escape it no matter where you look. It’s a constant reminder of our failing society. And while you would hope a nation would rise above, work together, and find SOME way to prevent this from happening again, we won’t. We don’t. Instead we spend our days bickering about whose fault it was. The boy’s parents, the gun, the FBI, the schools, the police…

If we can assign blame we can somehow forget, and believe it will never happen to us or someone we love.

I watch every video that comes through my feed and cry. I cry for the parents who have empty beds at home now. For the students who will never quite be the same after living through that trauma. I cry for the teachers who will return to empty seats in their classrooms. For the once little boy that so desperately needed help and never got it and how he turned into a monster.

I cry because monsters exist, and my own children can never truly be safe.

I watch what people are posting and I cringe. This awful, terrible, horrible thing has happened, and we don’t even pause to mourn it’s profound and dark message to our society. We don’t even wait til the dust on the graves has settled before posting political memes or engaging in heated debates. KIDS ARE DEAD. WE FAILED THEM. We reacted the same way with the last school shooting. We argued and pretended to be passionate about it for a few weeks, and then we got quiet. We slipped back into our lives and forgot.

Because they weren’t our kids. Yet.

My political affiliation in this post is irrelevant. In fact, all of ours are. But, in honor of transparency, I will say, I can’t honestly see why anyone needs to own an assault weapon. However, I will also say, banning assault weapons isn’t the answer. They are already prevalent in our society. They will still exist on a black market that doesn’t care about laws or policies. They will still fall into the wrong hands. Better enforcement of the laws and policies already in place would be a small start. Stricter policies on these weapons including background checks that explore both criminal history, and medical history to look for mental instability would probably make somewhat of a difference. However, that’s a slippery slope involving violating even more of our personal liberties and is likely something that will not be explored.

Arming teachers is not the answer. More guns is DEFINITELY not the answer. I personally taught for 10 years, up until the birth of my youngest daughter. Talking about guns in school makes me very, very uncomfortable. Younger, childless me, might have thought I’d volunteer to be a teacher packing heat, but Mom me knows I could never do it. I’d throw myself in front of kids to protect them in a heartbeat. But have the composure and skill in the scariest moment of my life to take out a deranged killer? There is NO WAY. Nevermind, the logistics of it would never work. Who is gifted with this extra huge responsibility? How are they chosen? Where do they keep this loaded gun? How do they access it quickly? How do they keep students from accessing it? How are they trained to react in the appropriate manner when some people who have trained all their lives struggle in the moment?

There are no simple solutions, or easy answers that everyone is going like. But common sense tells us where it starts. It starts with making education a priority in this country again, instead of slashing it’s funding year after year. It starts with putting our kids first. Recognising that a balanced education, in a healthy environment, can make such an impact, at so many levels. It puts money back in our schools, buys them the things they need to nurture well-balanced children everywhere. It makes schools SAFE. We add more security – metal detectors, limited access points – whatever it takes. We FIND the money to give schools for ALL their needs. We LISTEN when they tell us what they need. Because our children should be our priority. Our future should be our priority. Not only do we add more actual security to our schools, we find ways to offer more emotional security to our students. In some of their worlds, school is safer than home. And these days, that’s not saying much. With our kids getting the education and support they need, even if only in the walls of a school, we make a small difference. Maybe we save a few kids from becoming monsters. Maybe those kids save a few kids and a tiny ripple in this black hole appears.

This is where it starts.

So America. Get your shit together. Start acting and thinking as one, instead of furthering the divide. Forget about who’s to blame because in fact, our whole society failed these children. We were never loud enough about the things that mattered. We’ve chosen to bicker over whoto blame. We watched our children sit on a sinking ship and argued over why it was sinking instead of trying to fix it. Don’t sit back and let it happen again. Demand action from your government. Demand they give our schools, our children, whatever they need to protect and nurture them. Don’t look for blame in the wrong places and remind yourself it wasn’t your child, and let yourself forget. Next time you might not be so lucky.