How Are We Supposed To Keep Our Kids Safe?
How are we supposed to keep our families safe?
My daughter starts high school in less than a week, and I’m ready to keep her home. To never let any of us leave the house again.
After two mass shootings in less than 24 hours, I’m ready to cut off the rest of the world. How are we ever going to feel safe again?
The other day my husband and I were sitting in a crowded movie theater, and I glanced at the exit doors. “Wow. We are really exposed to that door, should we be worried?” I thought.
Then I stopped myself. “Don’t be ridiculous. You live in a small town. You’re in the middle of the nicest part. You’re fine.”
But was I? Am I fine?
I don’t think that I am. I don’t think I’m okay. I don’t think any of us are.
How can we keep our kids safe in a time and place where hundreds. Literally hundreds of mass shootings occur each year.
I’ll be honest, I’d love to see that happen. In a perfect world nobody would have guns and nobody would ever have a use for them.
But taking them away seems like an impossible task at this point. There are too many guns littered across homes all over suburbia. Too many people have access. Hell, you can 3-d print one if you’re smart enough.
And that’s just it. These shooters aren’t dumb. They’re hateful and they’re bigoted. Racist and awful. But they aren’t lacking in intelligence.
And that’s why I’m scared. That’s why I’m ready to hole up in a cabin, get all of my necessities deliver via mail and never leave again.
I want my daughter to be safe. I want her to have a big wonderful life full of happy moments and insane adventures.
Hell, I want to be safe and to have a wonderful life full of happy moments and insane adventures. But I don’t know how we can do that with things like multiple mass shootings happening in a day.
Why are they happening? What can we do to stop it? Take away all the guns?
I don’t know what we can do. I don’t know what I can do.
I’m powerless. You’re powerless. We are all powerless.
And that lack of power does nothing but breed more fear.
I have to go to the store today to pick up some necessities, and when I do, I’ll note the exits. The paces to hide. I saw a video of people hidden under the lawn furniture yesterday.
That was smart. It probably saved their lives.
Maybe I don’t need to go to the store that bad after all.
I can’t do this anymore. None of us can. And why should we have to?
I don’t have the answers. I thought if I started writing, one would come to me, but I was wrong. I don’t know how we keep our families safe.
I don’t think I ever will.