Words seem trite, patronising and inconsequential. But walking down the road tonight on our way back from downtown Boston I was struck so hard by the immense feeling of sadness that came over me at the loss of life today.  A man walked into an Elementary school and shot up a room of 5 to 10 year olds, and the teachers who tried to save them. Twenty children are dead. The gunman’s mother, a kindergarten teacher at the school, found dead in her home.  Words seem so profoundly inadequate but I only have words. And I felt the need to write them down.

I wished in that moment that humans were hardwired/programmed/evolved to follow one immutable law, one irrevocable law only. Be kind to each other. Like Asimov’s Law of Robotics in i robot  the first one being: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Let’s just swap the word robot out for human. Would that we could right?

Both sides of the gun control argument are so emotive and volatile and so vehement in their beliefs, there seem to be so many invested groups in the gun control issue. You have those who are passionate gun owners, NRA members, gun lobbyists and completely responsible gun owners, there are those who are stridently anti-gun, anti-NRA and passionately against the current gun laws, there are those who are for guns but even more for gun law reform.

Using highly emotive and incendiary words in your speeches and your articles and your editorials is not going to change the minds of those already made up. Referring to the gun lobby as the child killing lobby is only going to receive the applause of those who already despise the gun lobby (unproductive) and the vitriolic response from those who are pro-guns (also unproductive and some might say, inflammatory). Referring to the gun control lobby as unconstitutional, anti-American, knee jerk over reactionary, extreme civil libertarians who have no grasp on reality is not going to have any productive outcomes. Trotting out that worn out, tired and no longer relevant ‘Guns don’t kill people. People do’ does not hold the strength it did back when these shootings were rare and unheard of. None of these things will get a rational debate progressing. Perhaps I assume too much. I would like to imagine that those who are responsible gun owners/users would like to sit down and talk about how they can help lessen the number of shooting massacres in the US.  I would like to imagine that those who are anti-gun and passionately against the NRA would like to sit down and talk about what can be done in productive discussion with responsible gun-owners/users. I would like to think that money is not a part of this equation. I would like to think a lot of things as it turns out.

People can still own guns and not have multiple mass shootings happen in a year. Many countries have proven this is possible. America is not many countries. The United States will always look inwards for their solutions to their social issues. The rest of the world can only sit, watch and present the approaches they have implemented for US consideration. They can also hope, as I do, that productive, progressive gun law reform can take place. Americans should not have to wonder when they go to the movies, or to the mall, or when they send their kids off to school if this is going to be one of those days or moments that ends in tragedy. It’s reached the point now where the words ‘I never thought it could happen here, to me, my family, my friends’ are no longer heard in the stories of survivors, families of victims because it’s no longer true. For the sake of my many present and future American friends, I hope the Administration, congress and the lobbyists can work together to staunch this flow of devastating violence.

One last thing,

Be kind to each other. Why can’t we just be kind to each other?