Letter to the Editor: Another school shooting in the U.S.

It wasn’t one week after kids went back to school and already in Georgia there has been a school shooting with multiple casualties and fatalities. And just like with every other school shooting, the shooter had broadcast his intentions to others, everyone around him knew he was disturbed and had access to guns, authorities were notified and no one took the threat seriously, it was shrugged off. So much for “See something, say something”.

We are told to not bring politics into these tragedies, which is each side’s way of saying they have no answers and therefore don’t want to think about it. So how about those politics? Why is our gun culture so ingrained that we are loath to take any steps that might be perceived as anti-2nd Amendment, like these officials in Georgia seemed to have been? It seems no one wants to take any action until after the shooting starts.

Democrats blame easy access to guns, failure to hold gun sellers and owners responsible, and the inactions of the government to pass common sense gun responsibility legislation.

Republicans blame mental health issues, violent games, music, and movies. As well as the breakdown of family and taking God out of schools. But they refuse to bend on the 2nd Amendment, as if that one amendment in particular is more important than all the others, others like the 1st Amendment that do come with certain restrictions.

Truth is, all the above are valid reasons this country has more gun violence and school shootings than any other industrialized nation. In spite of the fact that every other country has their share of mental health issues, plays the same games, music, and movies as here, has family issues and does not include God in their schools and businesses.

Once our political parties stop playing the blame game with each other and work together to figure out how to prevent these tragedies, these shootings will become just a normal part of our kids’ school experience.

Only in America.

John Moore

Newton