The Burden We Ask Our Children to Carry
We replaced Lady Liberty’s torch with an AR-15 and told kids to fend for themselves.
An Open Letter to America’s Schoolchildren:
At every turn, we failed you. We’re ashamed, but we’re really not—if we were, we would have fought for your right to education unencumbered by the threat of violence. That simple, beautiful idea was beyond our willpower, I’m afraid. You expected too much of us.
We promised you time and again that we’d do better. After Sandy Hook. After Uvalde. After Nashville. We openly debated Serious™ and Legitimate® ideas like arming teachers, installing metal detectors at every conceivable access point, and adding bulletproof pop-up shelters. Surely something would stop the madness.
We congratulated ourselves if you made it out of elementary school unscathed only to see the horrors visited upon you again at Columbine and Parkland and Santa Fe and so many others we don’t bother to remember now.
There was nothing more we could have done. Not when your safety and the sanctity of your school jeopardized FREEDOM. Not when a few senators insisted that they couldn’t upend the chamber’s norms. Not when we decided that 27 ambiguous words in a document written centuries ago were more important than you coming home.
We replaced Lady Liberty’s torch with an AR-15 and told you to fend for yourself. Wasn’t that good enough?
American Exceptionalism was the gun manufacturer raking in record profits year after year. It was an entire political party genuflecting before the altar of the gun lobby. It was the Responsible Gun Owner watching with disinterest as military-style weapons filled our streets. Who were we to question these sacred truths in the greatest nation ever known to man?
All we ask of you now is to trust that we have your best interests in mind. We can and will do better, or at least that’s what we plan to print on a banner that will hang in your school. It’s the thought that counts.
Sincerely,
The Adults in the Room, March 2053
- MS
Photo credit: Nicole Hester, USA Today Network
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