From my post on today’s “The Makegood.”

http://the-makegood.com/2013/03/13/top-10-reasons-were-glad-youre-back-from-sxsw/

Top 10 Reasons We’re Glad You’re Back From SXSW

10. @Bre, @fivethirtyeight, @garyvee and @elonmusk need a rest.

9. There’s a boat-load of work to get done around here.

8. Every time you tweeted a picture of your barbeque, WE gained weight.

7. Your use of “inside hashtags” was disorienting. #fakeSXSW

6. Thanks, but we would like to get back to hearing about bands we know.

5. Our streams had 127 tweets/min between 10A – 3A and the nothing for the 7 hours in between. #DrunkatSXSW.

4. Now that you’re back, the only line you’ll have to wait will be at your HR office explaining why you Instagramed all those party pics. #badchoices

3. With all that rain over the weekend, we were worried that you might catch a cold.

2. We’re using all those new apps, anyway.

1. Sorry if we sound bitter.  We missed you.

What the world doesn’t need at this moment is yet another soliloquy about the shootings on Friday in Connecticut.  Everything that has needed to be written has been written already, but I have not yet written a word.  So the words I am about to write have no intention other than to be my own venue for expression.  My emotions are still all bottled up inside and there is just still so much of it.

Precious little people.  That’s all they were.  I cannot look at pictures of them without feeling sick.  My son is exactly their age.  He is the most important thing in my life.  And, all of the sudden, life itself is even more precious than it was just days before.

I cannot imagine never saying goodbye.  I cannot imagine the anger, the sorrow and the pain I would feel if I lost him under any circumstance, let alone one with no conceivable reason and no warning.  To drop him off in the morning – delivering him there – it is absolutely unimaginable.  To want to know why, yet with any possible answer not able to change the outcome at all – it is unfathomable.

This is not about me.  But it is more than just about them.  Unfortunately, terribly – it is about all of us.

For the past three days, I have felt unbelievably vulnerable.  What is that guy on the subway doing?  Why are those person’s eyes averting the rest of the riders?  I just feel skittish and tentative, unsure on my feet, little confidence in my surroundings.

It might be hard enough feeling that way as an individual, but to feel this way as a parent is far worse.  We have responsibilities to keep our children safe, but how can we be certain in our decisions when there are so many dangers around?

Our society has a problem and the first step is admitting it.

Tonight, I was in a barbershop waiting my turn.  The conversation taking place was about gun control.  Most of the customers were dead set against the idea.  One said: “How can you take away the rights I have had since birth?  How can you take away the rights given to us by the Constitution?”  He said this while clips of funerals played on the television tuned to the evening news.  I got up and walked out.

I’ll tell you how these rights can be taken away.  When one freedom endangers all of our other freedoms, we must reassess.

The second amendment was given to us by our government who wanted to provide checks on itself.  They created it to make sure that, in the unlikely event its future self fell into the wrong hands, the citizenry might rise up to take it back.  That was 1787.  Also that year: a steam craft was given the first U.S. patent and Mozart premiered an opera in Europe.  The weapons our Framers were approving, while not expressed in writing, were bayonets.  Mass murder by bayonet is impossible.  225 years later, our technologies have advanced, bayonets no longer exist in mass production and semi-automatic weapons are readily available for purchase on the Internet.  The intent of our Constitution must be reassessed.

Think of the meaning of “gun control.”  In this country, we have controls for a lot of things: traffic laws, drinking ages, yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.  Why must a conversation about laws - for something far more threatening - be the third rail of our national dialogue?  Is it not fair to assume that we should discuss issues as reasonable as waiting periods, deeper background checks and, my God, the pros & cons for machine guns on our streets?  Our limits must be reassessed.

We spend more money on our military than any other single line item in our federal budget and our might is unquestioned.  We have arrived at that place through centuries of commitment that ensures our safety against external threats.  But name them with me: a Connecticut school, an Oregon shopping mall, a Wisconsin temple, a Colorado movie theater, Virginia Tech, Columbine.  These are only the ones we remember – there are dozens of more mass murders over the last few years alone.  But yet we think we are strong because our military is strong.  Not if the enemy lies within.  Our priorities must be reassessed.

May the families of all who have been lost find strength to carry on.  May each of us find peace.  And may the lives of these 27 people stand for more than just their time on earth.