Since Sunday morning, when you first woke up to find out 49 innocent souls had been taken from their families by a murderous madman, you’ve probably felt helpless, powerless to change anything.
Your initial outcry was on social media, or joining friends and strangers at a vigil, at a rally, at a blood drive.
You may have emailed or wrote or called your elected officials about the need to reinstate restrictions on assault rifles, or given to Equality Florida to help the victims’ families, or simply told your friends in the LGBT community that you loved them, and always have, and always will.
Two, three days later, you may think it all for naught, and you’ll want to stop.
Don’t stop blogging, Tweeting, arguing on Facebook about whether or not people really need access to firearms that can kill 20, 40, 100 people at a time. The folks you argue with will be stubborn, use circular logic and generally attack you. You’ll want to stop.
You’ll email or write or call your Congresswoman or Senator and find out weeks, months, years down the line that nothing’s yet changed, that people on the Hill or in the White House are too far into the NRA’s pocket and will never change their ways. You’ll want to stop.
You’ll give blood and donate financially to groups that help the victims of Orlando or Newtown or Aurora or countless other places where lives were cut down in a hail of bullets, only to see another massacre unfold elsewhere, and find more lives lost to senseless gun violence. You want to keep helping, but feeling hopeless, you’ll want to stop.
You’ll tell your friends, who come from backgrounds similar to the victims of these mass shootings, that you love them, that you will be there with them to face down whatever hate or other circumstance led to a vicious, mindless bloodbath that killed members of their communities. And in the face of repeated heartbreak and loss, you’ll want to stop.
Your voice is important. It adds to a crescendoed chorus, to a persistent din.
To a noise that will one day drown out all that is irrational, all that is evil, all that takes life away in the name of being able to play with toys that kill.
You’ll make this noise, and you won’t think you’ll ever be heard, and you’ll want to stop.
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
germansingergirl
janainaart
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
stormborns
