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Photographer Richard Tsong-Taatarii of the Star Tribune captured this moment, and in it, every parent sees themselves.
Barefoot racing towards the sirens. Heart racing faster than her steps. This Minneapolis mother ran through fear itself toward the school, toward the unimaginable, toward her baby.
But in America, it’s no longer unthinkable, unimaginable, or unbelievable.
It’s understood. Our children are unprotected. The unfathomable has become the unavoidable. We offer nothing but “thoughts and prayers” for children who were shot and killed while literally praying.
The most powerful, wealthiest nation on Earth still can’t solve how to protect our own from our own. There’s no excuse, yet we keep inventing them.
We go to civil war over painted crosswalks, colorful flags, and restaurant logos… but keeping our children safe from armed maniacs is somehow “too hard.” It is an undeniable fact that our children simply can’t trust us, as a nation to keep them safe.
What is a right? A true right protects life, not endangers it. We call it freedom when it costs nothing, but defend it as sacred even when it costs lives. Yet the only sacred “God-given” right is the right to life itself. ANYTHING that infringes on that isn’t a right…it’s a wrong.
The Constitution isn’t sacred. It’s a piece of paper, the collective thoughts of a few men who agreed with each other at a moment in time, before any of us were alive. It’s not perfect. The fact that it has been amended so many times is proof of that. It’s proof that values change, that the world changes, that we change.
It had to be changed to end slavery, to say one human cannot own another. It had to be changed to give women an equal voice. It had to be changed to protect the freedom to speak without fear of government silence. But it hasn’t changed in decades.
The point should also be made that the same elected officials that push for “gun rights” and that guns make everyone safer, won’t allow you to walk into the building where they make those arguments and laws, with an actual gun. Why do you think that is? They literally mock so called “gun free zones” in a building where they have not only banned guns, but check to make sure you don’t have one.
Clearly, if we want things to change, they aren’t going to change until we change them. Its much easier to have manufactured courage when armed with a high powered rifle. Real courage is facing danger when armed with nothing but the fight to live and protect life. Do we have the courage to face the problem of arms in America, armed with nothing but the duty to protect our babies, and the memories of those we failed to? It’s time to have the courage to make a change.
Those are my thoughts. Those are my prayers. I hope they are yours too.
Robert Burns – The Space Coast Rocket
