Michael Raymond-James Instagram – #ArielleAnderson #AlexandriaVerner #BrianFraser Three more lives taken from the world much too soon by another madman with a gun. Five more students fighting for theirs. Family’s shattered. Parents who never got a phone call that night to hear “I”m okay mom.” Or, “I love you Dad.” A chance to pursue their dreams, extinguished forever.
A classroom should never be considered the wrong place at the wrong time. And yet it keeps happening.
This isn’t performative grief. I’m still fighting tears over this. And losing. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of The Michigan Wolverines. But this is so much bigger than sports fandom. Michigan State University is the school my big sister went to, where she was the captain of the Dance Team. The school that my niece and many of my cousins and my friends attended. A school I even took some classes at at one point. This is about kids having the right to grow up, safely, in a society that values their lives over the profits of a few gun manufacturers willing to stoke fear mongering culture wars, pitting well meaning Americans against each other in order to enrich themselves.
Some of you will no doubt be furious at me for that last statement. Some will say Hollywood glorifies gun violence and is to blame for the proliferation of mass shootings all over America. I’s a straw man argument, but sure, could we do a better job as an industry to tell different stories? Sure. But ask yourself this… Canada sees the same movies we do. So does France, and England, and South Korea, and Australia, and Ireland, and Japan, etc. yet they don’t have anywhere near our levels of school shootings. Why is that? They also have freedom.
Look, to those who are angry right now, I don’t claim to know what the answer is. But I DO KNOW that doing nothing hasn’t worked. And that it is going to take all of us. Enough of doing nothing.
Comments are turned off because I’m not interested is going around and around with a bunch of trolls looking to have a fight.
#SpartanStrong ☮️ | Posted on 16/Feb/2023 01:21:48
