This column was intended to be sarcastic.
After attending my youngest daughter’s fifth-grade graduation ceremony Tuesday afternoon, I would pretend to be outraged.
How dare this school teach my child about the dangers of alcohol and drugs, I would write. As a parent, that’s my job.
Books are being banned and a sanitized version of American history is being taught because of complaints from a few noisy parents. Mom and Dad should teach children about uncomfortable truths, the easily-offended often argue.
Well, can we agree it’s also not within an educator’s purview to indoctrinate our children with “copaganda,” then? How dare the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Junior Deputy program brainwash our children with its ineffective D.A.R.E. tactics? It should be parents who discuss the dangers of illicit drugs and alcohol abuse with their little ones, not sheriff’s deputies and teachers.
That column would have been funny, wouldn’t it?
And then, I learned at least 19 children were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Two adults died, too.
We have way more serious issues in this country.
The 18-year-old suspected gunman shot his grandmother before the mass shooting, according to reports. The requisite thoughts and prayers went out. Predictable outrage followed.
But until universal background checks are the norm, gun violence cannot be reduced in this country.
Mandatory firearm training and permits for people 21 and over to carry legally are essential to public safety. Too bad those regulations aren’t universal. Kansas and Missouri don’t require permits for concealed guns at all.
Domestic violence offenders and the mentally unstable should not be allowed to possess deadly weapons.
But Americans love their guns. They should hate dead children more.
“Spare me the (B.S.) of mental illness,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Tuesday afternoon. In 2012, one month before he was elected, 26 people — including 20 children — were killed in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his home state.
“We’re not an outlier on mental illness — we’re an outlier on firearms,” Murphy added.
Back at my daughter’s elementary school, children were being honored. They gleefully bounded onstage to receive their awards and certificates, and proudly posed for pictures with loved ones.
Of course, cupcakes were involved.
Those soon-to-be middle schoolers were oblivious to the fact that just a few hours before, a mass shooting had claimed the lives of their young counterparts in Texas.
“Will be talking to some of my fellow mayors against illegal guns,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote on Twitter Tuesday night. “Maybe there’s a lot we can do; maybe little. But, I’ll be damned if we just keep shrugging our shoulders after the preventable shooting massacres around us seemingly every week.”
My baby girl left the graduation with her grandmother to celebrate. Mom and Dad returned to daily work requirements.
Parents in Texas were left to grieve the loss of their precious children. That’s sobering.
Children at my daughter’s school will return to class a couple of more times this week without a care in the world.
Schoolchildren in Uvalde will never get the chance to live out their potential. Survivors and parents are forever scarred.
Ain’t a damn thing funny about that.
