One week after the latest school shooting, this mom is asking ‘how many more?’

This is an angry rant.

I am a mother of two young children who I kiss twice every morning before I take them to school and childcare because there is a very real possibility that a man with a gun could make me never kiss them again. I can be angry.

A week ago Monday, I watched the community I called home for 10 years go on lockdown over an active shooter at Michigan State University. The next morning three people were dead. When I first sat down to write this, I didn’t know if some of them were people I’d met over the hundreds of times I’d read this visited campus. I still don’t understand why the shooter – a 43-year-old man unrelated to the university – decided to carry a gun onto the busy campus and shoot people in multiple buildings.

What I do know is that I’ve spent the evenings and early mornings writing with friends who are Michigan State University faculty, staff, students, and alumni to make sure they are safe at home. To make sure they were alive.

I felt powerless watching the news from 700 miles away and filtering through unreliable tweets. I don’t think I would have felt any less powerless if this had happened at my alma mater, KU, or my local high school, because that’s what I am now: powerless.

This is a tirade, not a call to action, because we’ve been calling to action for decades and nothing has changed. We’ve seen parents and students mobilize to Uvalde, Parkland, Sandy Hook. I don’t have all the answers to stop this from happening, but there are organizations, community leaders and elected officials who have been shouting the answers from the rooftops and nothing has changed.

Instead, Republicans proudly wear assault rifle needles in Congress when they should pass legislation that supports the people they elect to office. They pray and cry and wail to protect an unborn fetus but do nothing of significance to save my children from dying in the classroom. They preach from the pulpit of the House and Senate that they support students, not systems, while they dismantle our public schools and bully our LGBTQ students and don’t fund special education.

On the Michigan State campus stands a giant rock, a gift from the Class of 1873, which served as a notice board for all students. It carries messages of support during finals week and pride during sporting events. The day after shooting, it contained a simple question: How many more? I don’t think it’s meant to be a rhetorical question.

So to the Republicans who put guns over lives, I ask you: How many more? How many more children will have to die because you put the Second Amendment above everyone else? How many more schools have to go into lockdown because you’re taking money from the gun lobby? How many parents have to get the call that their child has been murdered because they refuse to do anything? I will wait for your answer.

I’m calling out Republicans, elected or not, because their priorities are wrong. That’s subjective, I get it. But tell me I’m wrong.

One of the Michigan state students murdered on her campus Monday night was Alexandria (Alex) Verner. She was an athlete and played volleyball, basketball and softball. Right now, Kansas Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that someone like Alex doesn’t have to compete alongside transgender athletes. But they don’t lift a finger to make sure someone like Alex doesn’t die from a bullet.

Moms and dads and grandparents and guardians of young children everywhere have experienced every emotion across the spectrum as we quietly prepare our children for school each day. We are scared, anxious, depressed, tired and yes, very angry.

So if I have a call to action right now, it’s this: Look at each other as we follow the news of another school shooting and realize that in the five years since the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, nothing has changed really changed. Because we’re not okay.

end scold.

Laurel Burchfield is a local mother and advocate. Through its voice section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people affected by public policy or excluded from public debate. Find information here, including how to submit your own comment.