Two Cents Worth

Since the tragedy of the past weekend, I see that the pundits both left and right have been throwing in their two cents worth in. Also since the tragedy a good number of my social media friends, including me, have tossed out a wide variety of opinions on the matter. This is all well and good in America you are entitled to voice your opinion. Here’s the thing, no matter how many new laws we write or more guns citizens buy. If you cannot change the minds and hearts of people who believe violence is the only solution; every so often we are going to continue to see tragedies like this. 

I’m pretty sure a pile of you are thinking, “De, get your head out of the sand. The only way to stop this is more gun control, or more guns in the hands of citizens, or banning all Muslims, or maybe nuke the Middle East.” Believe me I’ve read the comments. It’s kinda sad the tragedies like this ignite compassion for about five seconds, and then fire up the polarizing rhetoric for about a month. But then once the victims are buried and the blood hosed off the building floor, we causally wait for the next tragedy we can scream our opinions about. 

There is no easy answer. Government can’t slap a Band-Aid on this and make it go away. Nor can stirring up rhetoric like, “kick ‘em all out”, do a damn thing. The thing we have to do is look inside each of our own hearts and ask, “What hatred am I holding on too?” Change begins with the heart and with open conversation. Conversation about why we feel the way we do. And, why we believe the only answer is violence and hate. Communication brings understanding so let’s start the conversation. Or are we so afraid we might be wrong that we continue to hate.