I’ll Stop ‘Politicizing’ Mass Shootings if You’ll Stop Ignoring Them
By the time we’ve had a chance to grieve and bury the children killed today — there will be more dead children.
How dare you politicize a tragedy like this! This is not the time! You can’t even wait until the bodies are in the ground!
I heard that again today from the lovers of guns.
I knew I would.
And honestly, normal grieving would be nice.
I’d really like to have that option.
I wish I could give every single one of those beautiful human beings the personal attention they deserve.
I’d like to spend time telling each of their stories in the greatest of detail; to find out what they loved to do, their favorite restaurants, the movies they liked, the people they dreamed of being when they grew up.
I’d like to see the pictures they had on their bedroom walls, to learn the names of their dogs and secret crushes, to hear about the specific idiosyncrasies that only those who know them well understand.
I wish I could talk to their parents and their best friends and their favorite uncles, so that I could paint a fitting portrait of every one of their vibrant, beautiful lives enough to eulogize them properly.
I’d like to to pause and try to let us all catch our breath from something so terribly breathtaking.
But that’s the problem: there simply isn’t time.
There isn’t time to “wait until the bodies are in the ground,” because by the time that happens there will be more shootings.
This is the stunning regularity of death here now.
By the time we mourn them, there will be more students or shoppers or church members or moviegoers or music fans or tourists to grieve over.
There will be more hallways riddled with bullets, more terrifying phone video taken by young people whose classrooms became war zones, more Breaking News of an active shooter, more frantic texts from parents to their sons and daughters that will not be returned.
And by the time we’ve had a chance to grieve and bury the children killed today — there will be more dead children.
And on that terrible day, just like today, you will tell me this isn’t the time. You’ll again chastise me for being insensitive. You’ll again feign offense and accuse me of politicizing a tragedy. You’ll pretend that you actually give a damn about the memories of these young people or the pain of their families, or the fact that someone’s children were once again huddled and terrified in cafeterias and gymnasiums and classrooms while you tell me it’s too soon to talk about how wrong this all is.
And in this time you’ve scolded me to wait silently through, millions of dollars will flow directly from the NRA to the very politicians charged with protecting these children who will die. In that time of silent waiting, gun advocates will generate every false narrative to blame the carnage on Muslims or immigrants or Liberals; to place culpability somewhere else, anywhere else but where it belongs. In that time you’re telling me to be silent, people will be easily buying assault weapons and planning the next atrocity, while the people who love and sell and profit from guns try and wash the blood from their hands.
And in the time it takes to properly grieve and mourn these children killed today — you will have forgotten about them. You will have moved on. They will be yesterday’s news. The nightmares of this day will have been replaced by another round of terrified teachers, of distraught parents speeding toward schools, of hollow thoughts and prayers from politicians tone policing my outrage and doing nothing else.
By the time we bury these sons and daughters, there will be another set of bodies awaiting the ground. Before these wounds have healed there will be more wounds inflicted. And you’ll be there again to tell me this isn’t the time. To hell with that. This is the time.
This is the time, because this isn’t normal. This is the time, because kids aren’t supposed to die in school. This is the time, because we have a gun problem. This is the time, because half our Government is in bed with the gunrunners.
So yes, we agree.
These children deserve to be properly eulogized.
They deserve to be rightly remembered.
These also deserved to live.
And the children who will die tomorrow deserve to live too.
I care about them enough not to wait.
I will not wait until they are no longer radiant young lives — but bodies awaiting the ground.
For them — now is the damn time.
(Here are some organizations who are helping make this country safer:)
Moms Demand Action Everytown for Gun Safety The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Violence Policy Center Gabby Gifford’s Americans for Responsible Solutions The Brady Campaign
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About John Pavlovitz
John is a father of two, (Noah and Selah), and husband of one (Jennifer); a 17-year ministry veteran, specializing in rabble-rousing, engineering mayhem, and generally trying to live-out the red letters of Jesus.
He enjoys songwriting, exercising, cooking, hiking, and eating emotionally.