I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing on the fateful day I reached my tipping point. But more importantly, I remember what I felt when I read that another mass shooting had taken place, just weeks, if not days, after the shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. This time it happened at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and this time, as a mother of two young kids, it hit too close to home.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed. Rage. Just complete and absolute rage followed by heartbreak for the victims’ families. Then frustrated with the fact that this could have been prevented if only common sense gun laws were passed.
Mass shootings are sadly a problem in this country and this country only. It’s simply too easy to purchase firearms and laws must be passed to make it harder to buy them.
Nineteen innocent children, looking forward to the start of summer vacation, were killed in their school. In their classroom — the last place a child should feel unsafe. No parent, absolutely no parent, should fear dropping off their kids at school because it may be the last time they see them alive.
It is incomprehensible that even when innocent children are killed, there is still so much debate concerning gun control. Schools don’t need armed teachers, armed guards or bulletproof doors and windows. If that were the case, so would movie theaters, grocery stores, churches and hospitals since those are all places where mass shootings have also taken place.
It’s a gun problem and if there is anything I can do, no matter how small, to help end gun violence, I will.
Sara Díaz de Sandi is a former journalist and currently full-time mom to two young kids.
Photo credit: Don Holloway