I wonder what the LinkedIn profile of Javier Lopez would look like.
An entrepreneur launching our next must-have app? An astronaut? Perhaps an engineer that could help invent a new sustainable fuel? Or what about a F500 executive, climbing the corporate ladder and supporting the diversity of leadership?
As a dad of a 3-year-old boy, I wonder, what could Xavier become? But we’ll never know.
Xavier was 10 years old when he was senselessly shot and killed among 18 of his peers in a Texas elementary school yesterday. Since this horror took place, I have been unable to sleep or focus.
What’s frustrating me the most about all of this is wondering, “what can I do?” As a nation, we constantly address this problem as a binary one, where one can only be pro-gun or anti-gun, with absolutely no in between. Clearly, such a wide gap is impossible to mend. But it is a false one.
According to Pew research1, 87% of Americans strongly or somewhat favor preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns, 81% favor making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks, and 64% favor banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. What’s more shocking is that even 37% of Republicans support banning assault-style weapons, along with 83% of Democrats.
Decades of shootings after Columbine, it is evident that no amount of tragedy has resulted in meaningful change to gun safety laws. Yet, our automobiles have advanced so much to include 27 airbags, lane keeping assist, automatic braking, and driver alertness sensors.
Looking in on this nation from the outside, I wonder what others think. Here is one of the richest, most innovative, and comfortable countries in the world, and its proudest accomplishment is preserving its citizens’ unfettered access to weapons. Senseless.
If you want your guns, keep your guns. But let’s at least make it as hard to get another one as it is to get a mortgage.
If you’re an executive, I challenge you and your PAC to drop support of any NRA-endorsed candidate. It’s the least you can do. We must send a message that we cherish policymakers that are focused on advancing our nation, not our access to arms.
If you feel this post is of poor taste and “too soon,” you’re dead wrong. It’s too late.
The greatest test of our generation is whether we left this world a better place than we found it. For that, it’s not too late. We still have time, but we must act.
1Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/