For all of the progressives on here tonight who are decrying that we somehow need to act and resolve the gun issue here in America right this minute -- right tonight, right NOW....
Now is NOT the time. Literally speaking.
It has not even been 12 hours (at the time of this writing) since the families of 20 children, probably most around 5 years old were savagely gunned down, a little more than a week before Christmas, by someone who is being described as 'mentally disturbed'.
That's a lot to digest. Whether you have kids or not, the ultimate tragedy is when a kid dies -- by any means.
But when they are innocently gunned down because they had the misfortune of being in school -- the reality of our collective failure to these children as adults -- becomes glaringly apparent.
And I'm not just talking about guns, either.
Over the next weeks and months and beyond, progressives and uber-conservatives, gun control advocates and the NRA, politicians from the President to your local school board member will weigh in on what went so horribly wrong, why it went wrong and what can be done about it. Now I already know the answer to one of those questions, but for me at least, right now, I don't care about all that.
I care about being emphatic and understanding and supportive of the citizens in Connecticut right now.
I care about wrapping my arms around these people to let them know that I'm with them and I grieve for them and I'm there to hold them up -- even as they can't hold themselves up right now.
For me, all the other chatter -- yeah, it can wait.
Because it occurs to me that the real problem with all of us sometimes is our attitudes and all of the behaviors and actions that stem from it.
I'm not saying that you have no right to be mad and I know -- I really do -- that it's the anger that's driving the narrative.
But let me humbly suggest that we find a way to remember that a lot of people are badly hurting tonight. Nothing beyond the swirl.