It was July of this calendar year when I wrote about a mass shooting that happened in Aurora, Colorado.

The weapon used there was this:

 

The gun had been modified so that it would hold an ammunition clip of 100 rounds.

There was that shooting there in Colorado – there was the shooting in Arizona that wounded and almost killed a US Congressperson – Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D) Arizona.  This is what she looked like before she took a bullet to the brain:

This is what she looked like after:

If that visual is not enough, let’s take a look at former Representative Giffords as she attempts to recite the Pledge of Allegiance:

 

Is that still not enough?  How about this photo, of Representative Giffords while she was still in the hospital:

 

See that?  See all of that? Hear all of that??

Do you know where American children learn the Pledge of Allegiance?  In Elementary School. In kindergarten and first grade, in elementary school our little ones go to learn how to read and write.  They learn how to play with others.  They learn science and math.  They learn the pledge.

They go to schools that look like this:

They have recess in the yard while they play dodge ball and jump rope until school starts.  They follow their teachers to the classroom, sit at their desks and begin their day with the Pledge.

Did you see Gabby Giffords?

Now imagine your little one:

Try watching her with a trach in her throat, and only having the use of one arm because of brain damage, trying to recite the pledge.

There are parents out there tonight who might have that reality.

26 dead as of 11:00pm est.

20 of them children.

Those parents won’t have the opportunity to hold their sons and daughters hands as they fight back from a horror no 8-year-old should ever have to endure.  No human should have to endure it, but to impose it on a 2nd grader is a special kind of evil.

All day – well once I brought myself to watch the coverage – I keep hearing now is not the time to talk about how this could have been prevented.

Fuck that.

April 1999 – Littleton, Colorado – It wasn’t the time.

July 2003 – Meridian, Michigan – It wasn’t the time.

March 2006 – Seattle, Washington – It wasn’t the time.

October 2006 – Lancaster, Pennsylvania – It wasn’t the time.

April 2007 – Blacksburg, Virginia – It wasn’t the time.

December 2007 – Omaha, Nebraska – It wasn’t the time.

April 2009 – Binghampton, New York – It wasn’t the time.

November 2009 – Foot Hood, Texas – It wasn’t the time.

January 2011 – Tuscon, Arizona – It wasn’t the time.

April 2012 – Oakland, California – It wasn’t the time.

July 2012 – Aurora, Colorado – It wasn’t the time.

August 2012 – Oak Creek, Wisconsin – It wasn’t the time.

December 11, 2012 – Clackamas, Oregon – It wasn’t the time.

December 14, 2012 – 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 – in their school rooms – while they were making Christmas cards and dreidels  and reciting the pledge.  While they were composing letters to Santa Claus on red construction paper and using safety scissors and fat crayons

 

When is the time to talk about it?  When is it the time to take action?  If we can’t talk about it after 20 of our babies are dead when do we?

How many?

50?

500?

5,000?

What number of innocents doing things like going to church, or going to the movies, or going to kindergarten will it take before we act – before we FORCE our representatives to act?

 

Let me know the number.  I will turn off the TV until then, and hold my child tight.  At the same time I will wonder if he will be next, because the realization that gun control is necessary can’t seem to get past the rhetoric of the NRA.