I am old enough to know that even law wasn’t perfect and didn’t prevent Columbine. I remember thinking, in the wake of that tragedy, that the shooting was the worst thing that could ever happen, and of course we would do to all we could to prevent anything like that from ever happening again. Even after 5 years working in the federal government at that point, I was still naive enough to think that the government would do more to protect innocent born children.

Today, gun violence is the number one cause of death of kids and teens in the U.S.

I am old enough to have had school age children when the Sandy Hook massacre happened in 2012. Surely, the senseless deaths of 20 first graders, right before Christmas no less, would be enough to make “them” do something.

The violence continued. I raged to my echo chamber.

Parkland was about an hour away from us; we occasionally visited a skating rink near there. When the survivors “called BS” and we marched with them in the early days of Students Demand Action, I cried for days, and didn’t leave my children anywhere without me for at least a year (we homeschooled by then) because I knew I was the only person who would throw my body over theirs if we were ever in a shooting.

The Violence continued. I raged to my echo chamber and donated to Everytown For Gun Safety.

Covenant School is about 15 minutes from where we lived at the time of the mass shooting there. My daughter had an acquaintance that went to church with Hallie Scruggs, one of the six children killed there. Our commute took us through Hallie’s neighborhood for much of the next few months. There is a huge heart on a gate post with her name on it. Hallie had a church and a street and we knew people who knew her. Our next door neighbor, Marsha, was friends with Katherine Koonce, the Head of School. Marsha went to six funerals in a week.

The violence continued. I raged to my echo chamber, brought Marsha flowers and dinner one night, and made a peace memorial with our skating community.

I am so guilty of saying “enough is enough” but never doing anything beyond comforting the grieving at best.

Then, I started writing poetry after massive acts of violence or political turmoil.

And then came Annunciation. And I lost it completely. The neighborhood I grew up near; went to school in, a pin on the cork board of my safety net, was violated.

Friends on Substack asked me to write a poem about the victims. Harper & Fletcher moved me to tears so much I couldn’t even edit it. Murder of children had reached epidemic proportions; this was a real public health crisis, like a reduction in vaccine rates.

And I raged to my echo chamber, wrote more, joined Moms Demand Action and Everytown For Gun Safety, and started Bare Arms to #protecttheborn from preventable death and serious illness.

I am not waiting for an act of congress or wisdom on the part of the government to read the second amendment in context. “Enough is enough” only means something if we the people act to protect the children in our communities.