It’s been nearly two weeks since two children were murdered along with countless gun shot wounds to additional children while attending prayer at their first day of school in Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis. 

One of the injured, a young girl, remains in critical care, fighting for her life. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the tragedy. It’s nearly impossible because it is such a horrible event in the lives of the young children, their families, and the community. It has repercussions that will remain the entirety of their lives. It stays in the minds of the general public how horrific this tragedy is in everyone’s lives.

As parents we want our children to live safe and happy lives. We see the moments of innocence lost on their faces and expressed emotions. For some, these young children, their emotions will remain locked into this tragedy for a long time. Any parent or adult knows they don’t deserve this, didn’t deserve a life altering event like this at such a young age, in a place of worship, no less. 

So how do we address a recovery from such an act of evil? How do we take our next steps? How do we convince our community, and in this case most importantly our kids to feel safe?

In my mind, there is only one option. We need to clamp down on access to firearms. We can’t brush it aside and dumb society down by using gender stereotypes to allay the consequence of such behavior. The result of this incident is that of personal choice. We need to find a way to try to prevent such violence by reducing access to the very ammunition that breaks people in our society.

My saddest take away from all of this is again the psychological burden this places upon the children directly involved with their peers and community. That’s not to speak of children in general in Minneapolis, the twin cities and beyond. I have to think how I might react to this situation being as close to it as the children in attendance that morning. 

Personally I lost a cousin to tragedy when I was 12 years old. That loss has stayed with me all my life. No tragedy is explainable but that one felt preventable. It’s consequence cannot hold a candle to the loss children of gun violence experience at a young age. I don’t know the answer at all.

I can only speak from my own personal upbringing that my only exposure to firearms was my father’s tradition for pheasant hunting, a sport he told me he would one day teach me. I wasn’t traumatized by that hobby. To me, it correlated with going fishing, except to be conscious of its inherent dangers if not treated properly with training. Not threatening a life as its primary motive.

We read about gun violence every day in the news, most of us are simply onlookers of other people’s loss. We feel it but it doesn’t add the same trauma to our lives as it does to the personal victims. We are a sensitive society that needs to feel safe in all elements of our lives. We need a tangible discussion on how to reduce gun violence in our society, and not blame it upon speaking items that fit into the political travesty of our country.