Grief!

I have no words to express the feeling of grief and sadness that has been clinging the last few days. If it is this hard for us who are mere spectators from so many miles away I cannot even remotely fathom what the families are going through. Pray that God will give them the strength to bear.

I started to write this post many times the last few days but a combination of grief, anger and helplessness made it hard to find words and coherently write something.

I have been watching way too much TV listening to our politicians and wondering if anything will really change. As these politicians flit in and out of talk shows mouthing platitudes a knot of fear grips. But one has to hope for the best so hope I will.

We as citizens also have the power to force change don't we?

It is impossible to understand what drives people to hoard arms. Hiding behind the second amendment weapons manufacturers, NRA and others have not only made a lot of people extremely paranoid they have also laughed all the way to the bank.

The only politician who was ready to call a spade a spade was New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. His answer to David Gregory on Meet the Press,

"David, I can’t tell you that if you stopped people who have psychiatric problems, who have criminal records, who have substance abuse problems, who are minors; if you stopped every one of them from buying a gun, I can’t promise you that this particular event wouldn’t have taken place. But this particular event is just one of a series that happens again and again and again. And a big chunk of those would have been placed. It’s like your argument is there’s no reason to have speed limits because it wouldn’t have stopped that one person when the cops weren’t around that they stepped on the pedal. That’s not true. They all-- the aggregate of all of this would be if we-- if Congress were to act, if Congress wasn’t so afraid of the NRA. And I think you can-- I can show you that they have no reason to be. But if they were to stand up and do what was right for the American public, we’d all be a lot better off. And Congress has the ability to do this. And the president, in my view, is the one who has to lead this. The president campaigned in ‘08 on an assault weapon ban. And the only gun legislation that the president has signed since then, one is the right to carry a gun in national parks where our kids play and one is the right to carry guns on Amtrak. I assume that’s to stop the rash of train robberies which stopped back in the 1800s. And this is ridiculous." Quoted from transcript of Meet the Press.

We need the President to step up to the plate and use his bully pulpit to bring all politicians in line and do what is right. For the good of everybody hopefully he will lead.

Other countries have made changes when faced with similar tragedies and have been able to successfully curb deadly weapons. Australia did it, Scotland did it. US calls itself the greatest nation on the face of the earth where everything is possible. Will it be able to protect its children? If it cannot nothing else matters really! With Hope and Prayer!