Aging with Grace

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

This week’s post grew out of two influences. The first was something I read, the second something I heard. They both put forward the same idea. What if we came together to talk about ending gun violence? No criticism or judgement. Just a discussion to share our thoughts. What do we have to lose?

Parkland school shooting survivor, David Hogg thinks it’s time. He is pushing for bi-partisan discussion on ending gun violence. Is it possible to sit down together and talk about what we can do to save our children?

On April 20, 2023 it will be 24 years since the school shooting at Columbine High School in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado. It begin an onslaught of school shootings which continue today. Just a couple of days ago, we experienced another mass shooting with 3 dead and 5 injured at Michigan State University.

I have strong feelings about that first shooting at Columbine. Both my children graduated from there. We lived within walking distance of the school. It’s just a middle class suburb outside of Denver. The school was no different than many other suburban schools until that day in April, when everything changed and the word Columbine became synonymous with school shootings. That’s not the legacy any of us wanted.

It doesn’t seem like we’ve made much progress, in the past 24 years, in finding a way to protect our children. So, can we just sit down together and talk?