One More........

Three students and three adults were shot and killed in a mass shooting at a private elementary Christian School in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, March 27, 2023.  The students shot at the Covenant School were all nine years old.  The shooter, a former student of the school, entered the school by shooting through a side door.  The shooter was armed with two assault style weapons and a handgun, and went through the second floor, firing shots, before being shot and killed by the police.

The school shooting occurred in a wealthy subdivision of Nashville, at a private Christian school.  

It's happening everywhere. 

And we've reached an staggering new landmark.  Firearms are now the number one cause of death of American children and teens, surpassing motor vehicle accidents and cancer.

I hate that I'm numb to these.  That every time I hear about one, I just think, oh, look another one.  And that I'm getting hopeless that we will ever actually address it.  Once Sandy Hook and Uvalde happened and we did nothing, once we saw it at an elementary school and did nothing, we've just accepted it as a cost of life in the United States.  The republican representative in Tennessee has admitted as much.  "We're not gonna fix it."  Rep. Tim Burchett admitted.  His solution was to homeschool, like he has done.  Such a callous disregard. 

They don't care about us.  They never have.

I tell you, nothing has broke me like trying to reassure my kindergartener regarding an active shooter drill and my third grader writing about the shooting of a fifth grader and coming up with her solution. 

Because the really sad thing is, we know what would actually work and refuse to do anything about it, I'm repeating an and updating article that I've had to post over and over and over again now in the five years the blog has been running.  

I'll continue to do so, until maybe we start to listen.

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Because there have been 89 school shootings so far this year in 2023...
Because school shootings have risen 150% since 2018....
Because there have been 75 shot and either killed or wounded at a school this year alone...
Because active shooter drills are now common place in elementary schools...
Because we're teaching kids to run at shooters and then praise them as heroes, but are forgetting to mourn that necessity...
Because we have a generation of kids who view school shootings as just the way things have always been...
Because we still haven't done anything of substance to stop them...
Because chances are, we will still do nothing about this one...

Because I'm tired...

Because we can see exactly when this exploded on the scene again - when the assault weapons ban was lifted.

It bears repeating - From a post at the beginning of this blog:

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I'm tired.  I'm tired of this topic continuing to come up.  I'm tired of us continuing to have the same response - thoughts and prayers, then talking at each other, then a whole lot of nothing, and it's forgotten until we move on to the next one.

When I started this blog, my second post was a repost of a Facebook message on the Second Amendment in response to the Parkland, Florida school shooting.  There have only been 54 days in between these posts.  And here we are again, with a school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas.  And I haven't even touched on all of the school shootings that have occurred.  There have been 5 other school shootings in the interim, just not to the same scope.

We have an addiction to guns in this country that causes us to look at anything else except gun control as a possible solution.  It's far past time we put everything on the table.  We should be looking at mental health care.  We should be looking at bullying.  We should be looking at the family structure.  We should be looking at socio-economic status and mobility.  AND we should be looking at sensible gun control.  We're a big country and pretty good at multi-tasking.  We're more than capable of looking at it all.

But I'm too tired to write anymore on this.  Who knows what good it does at this point.  In lieu of further debate, I'm just going to post facts and let them speak for themselves.

• On an average day, 96 Americans are killed with guns.
• On average, there are nearly 13,000 gun homicides a year in the United States.
• For every one person killed with guns, two more are injured.
• 62% of firearm deaths in the United States are suicides.
• Seven children and teens are killed with guns in the United States on an average day.
• In an average month, 50 women are shot to death by an intimate partner in the United States.
• America's gun homicide rate is more than 25 times the average of other high-income countries.
• The United States accounts for 46% of the population, but 82% of the gun deaths.
• Background checks have blocked over 3 million gun sales to prohibited people.
• Black men are 13 times more likely than white men to be shot and killed with guns.
• The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of the woman being killed by five times.

https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/

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Until it's heard...
Until we stop pretending like it will go away...
Until we do something, anything...
Until we care more about people than things...
Until we listen more to constituents than to special interest groups...

Until the next time...hopefully with a much longer gap in between

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There have been 130 mass shootings in America in the 88 days so far in 2023.

Humbling perspective.

The Travelers' Report Part 15 - Road Trip Day 2 Nashville to Kentucky

Part 15 in the series of our ongoing travels, both as a family and individually.  This continues the Hamrick family road trip, covering the leg from Nashville to the rental house in Kentucky.  As before, Jamie's thoughts are in blue, with my own color commentary.

"After a good nights sleep we hit the streets of Nashville and headed over to the Adventure Science Center. Thanks to our Perot membership this amazing museum was free for us and our our nephew. They had a whole section of bodily functions which we all found hilarious especially the intestines slide wherein the person sliding represents the poop leaving the body. As you exit the slide there was a pad that made fart noises, Jude kept jumping on the sensor just to hear that sound and giggle over and over again."

This is an incredible science museum, with an amazing six-story play area in the center.  The kids had a blast, and I think Jamie and I did too.

"The departure of the museum lead us to the Goo Goo shop where you can make your own goo goo cluster. We loaded up on the variety pack (chocolate is never a bad road trip snack, or any type of snack for that matter.)"

The peanut butter cluster is definitely the best, though I was tempted by a couple of their signature creations.

"The last stop in Nashville before heading up to Kentucky was The Soda Parlor. Almost everyone has a shake but we opted for the PB+Space Jam, a delectable dish of Belgium Waffle with cookie and nutter butter ice cream with strawberry and blueberry drizzled on top of whipped cream and cookie crumbles. YUM!"

Our PB+Space Jam was dubbed a Mondae, and it was a delectable brunch.

"Lunch brought us to Bojangles Chicken n Biscuits, for a fast food joint it was pretty good. Mitch wanted to go back there ever since the last time he had it and now we all got to experience the deliciousness." 

I've been missing Bojangles since a couple of summer camps in North Carolina. It's still as good as I remember, and I think they have the best biscuits of any fast food joint.

"We did have to make a quick detour to the Jim Beam distillery. Two days on the road with the kids drove us to drink.😂 We settled on Pre-prohibition rye whiskey and for the two of us being unfamiliar with that liquor I will say we chose well. That bottle will most likely last us a long while but it is quite smooth."

"By our days end we arrived at our house in Pendleton, KY. The story of the owners is pretty amazing. They had 8 kids biologically and adopted 6 kids from Africa. At one point that three story home housed 17 kids when they also provided for two kids who needed to escape a bad situation. One thing I can say is the house exudes warmth and love and we’re so glad this is where we chose to stay."

This was a great location and an excellent place to escape and relax. The family rents out several distinct parts of their property and we would recommend.  It put us within two hours of all our travels over the next few days.  Perfect central location.

"Stay tuned for more adventures on the road!"

Next in the series - Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio

The Travelers' Report 14 - Road Trip Day One Nashville

Part 14 in the series of our ongoing travels, both as a family and individually.  The next several entries will be from the Hamrick family road trip to Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.  Jamie's thoughts are in blue, with my own color commentary.

"My family planned a big road trip to Kentucky centering around the ark exhibit and then adding on whatever side adventures we liked to make along the way. You need to know we’re caravanning with three cars, four kids seven and under and ten adults. Our adventures started early when my brother got his keys locked in the car in Arkansas, at least we made it out of Texas.😉

Our first stop outside of a gas station was a picnic at the Memphis welcome center. What a wonderful scene they created right there on the river with a fun playground for the kids to blow off their pent up energy after being trapped in the car for several hours and the cutest covered picnic area to enjoy."

The welcome center in Memphis is amazing.  Right on the river, excellent park space.  Plenty of walking trails.  And the interior space honoring the musicians is excellent as well.  Definitely recommend a stop there if you need one.

"Our final stop of the day before we headed to our hotel in Nashville was dinner at the Loveless Cafe. Such a great place to eat. The restaurant sits in an old motel with lots of little shops and games to play while you wait for a table. We loaded up on some blackberry jam and pumpkin butter before gorging ourselves on some of the best fried chicken, and catfish I’ve ever eaten. Jude and Ryker seemed to be in competition over who could eat the most biscuits (they basically became their meal.)"

I've been wanting to go to the Loveless since the rest of my family has stopped there and raved about it. While they typically do breakfast there, we ended up eating dinner. It did not disappoint.

"All in all our first and longest leg of the trip went fairly well. (Sorry about the keys Joseph)
More adventures to come!!!"

Next stop, Kentucky