The murder-suicide that ripped through UCLA 2 days ago is reverberating. It’s being discussed and dissected. As of this writing, 2 innocent people are dead (1 here and 1 in Minnesota), along with the shooter. Countless others are forever affected.

 

Reading about the students’ and teachers’ traumatic experience during the UCLA shooting brought back a memory of a brush I had with lockdown, when a gunman was being sought. (The link to my writing about that is here.) My rough night was tame in comparison, scary though it was. And while I realize some folks at UCLA are probably back to their routines, I’m quite certain many others are still trying to shake off the horrid fear of Wednesday morning. And there’s just no telling how long that will take. It’s complicated. And ugly. Pathetic even. This sort of all-too-common occurrence is ridiculous. We don’t know if these tragedies can be traced to mental illness, or to a failure to value life, or to something else entirely. For anyone who’s lost a loved one, the reason – if at all nameable – will never be enough. In fact, a long list of reasons won’t change one simple truth: Guns are far too easy to obtain.

 

Here’s what I want to know: When is enough enough? For the tunnel-visioned NRA lobbyists and gun-obsessed, what will it take to enact stricter gun laws? I mean it. Sit down and formulate your magic number, then tell the rest of us just how many innocent people have to die before you’ll accept changes to current lax gun restrictions. I’m serious. You decide. How many is it? Clearly, lives lost thus far don’t matter enough to alter the fact that it’s all-too-easy to purchase a firearm. So I’m asking you, the gun-toting, second-amendment-quoting citizens of this country, to decide how many lives it takes to enact change.

 

Don’t want that responsibility? I didn’t think so.

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