The deaths of nineteen elementary school students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas on 24 May was the tipping point for me in this insane mass shooting epidemic we’ve been living in since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. And yet here we are dealing with even more deaths of the innocents.

In reading and looking at all that has come out of Uvalde, two images haunt me like none of the others because I’ve seen the same thing before here in Orlando. Here are those two Uvalde images.

On 12 June 2016 49 people were killed and another 53 were injured at the Pulse Nightclub on South Orange Avenue in Orlando, Florida. Even though we live less than 30 minutes from downtown Orlando, my wife and I waited for six days before we drove into the area to see if there was anything we could do to help. I walked around those areas I could as a civilian, as everything around Pulse was cordoned off by the local and state police.

I’m tired of seeing crosses for the killed at these mass shootings. Whether for children like in Uvalde or adults like in Orlando, one cross is one too many, and we’ve seen thousands.

I’ve read that the “authorities” tried to blame someone in the school for leaving a door open, allowing the shooter to enter. The “authorities” walked that accusation back when they found out the door had been closed. But the shooter entered anyway because the door was broken and wouldn’t lock. That’s what happens when you cut budgets to save tax dollars; you wind up with real blood on your hands.

Another similarity with Uvalde was the lack of rapid response to the shooting. On 8 February 2018 17 at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, 17 students were killed and another 17 injured in another mass shooting. Broward County Sheriff was incompetent in not following up on multiple warnings about the shooter, as well as not immediately confronting the shooter while he was killing everyone inside.

The police are great about harassing and eventually killing lone individuals in this country, especially if you’re black. But let the perpetrator be white and heavily armed to begin with and all those brave officers suddenly have more gun than backbone.

Finally, a graphic visual reminder of what we’ve got on our hands so far this year in 2022. This is from an article in the Washington Post ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/02/mass-shootings-in-2022/ ), who wrote that this country has now suffered through more than 230 mass shootings through May of 2022. Buffalo and Uvalde are highlighted in May.

Up to this point I’d been waiting forever for someone with both common sense and the power to do something, to do something. But as it’s been shown by all the crosses for the innocents, nothing will happen unless all of us, myself included, become an irresistible force for change.