Changing it up

So, for this post, I’m gonna change it up a little bit. I want to talk about something not at all related to body positivity, but something that has been weighing on me these past few days: gun control. I’m sure most of you have seen the news about the school shooting that happened in Florida. On Wednesday, February 14th, 17 students and faculty were murdered and numerous more injured at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida.

It’s hard for me to express the rage, disappointment and disgust that wells up and consumes me when I think of incidents like these. Because while so many people are able to walk into a store and purchase a gun, it takes up to two years for someone seeking asylum status in the United States to be granted asylum. Two years. They go through intensive security checks, interviews, hundreds of sheets of paperwork and even at the end of all of that, they might not be given permission to enter the United States, even though for many of them, it will cost their lives. Women who want an abortion are generally mandated a 48 hour waiting period, are forced to get permission from a parent, judge or doctor, need to go through psychological tests and sometimes need to travel across state lines to enter into a planned parenthood surrounded by protesters. Hell, in some states it takes more time to adopt a cat than it does to purchase a gun.

I try to end each blog post on a positive note, because I am a firm believer that thinking positively can drastically alter your mindset. But as I sit here, typing these words I am genuinely at a loss for how to spin this situation. I want to know how many more lives will have to be endangered and lost, before someone realizes that enough is enough. How many more innocent people who have given so much but have so much left to offer, will have to be brutally murdered before someone- who sits privileged with a full detail of security- acknowledges that we need change. With all my heart and soul I wish I could knock some sense into the people with power to show them how devastating their inaction is. Have they not seen the massive memorials? Have they not spoken to the citizens of those who have had partners, siblings and children ripped away from them? Have they no empathy to feel at least some semblance of the heart-wrenching sadness that overwhelms entire communities after an incident like this? The only answer I can come up with is no. Because if they had, then why haven’t we seen policy change.

We need change. And in the meantime all we can do is continue to support the people who have suffered the most at the expense of us all.