I recently came across this quote from Marian Wright Edleman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund: "It's everywhere. Guns and violence are in every nook and cranny of America. Many children can get a gun quicker than they can get a book out of the library. This puts us all at risk."
Next week is the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech University where a mentally ill gunman killed 32 people. I keep thinking about this generation of students and the gun violence they have experienced. My youngest daughter was in the sixth grade when the shootings at Columbine High School occurred. She was a sophomore in college when the shootings a Virginia Tech occurred. In the year since the Virginia Tech shootings, students at Auburn University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and Northern Illinois University have seen guns kill and injure on their campuses. These shootings have created a generation of children and young adults traumatized by gun violence.
Marian Wright Edleman is right - guns are in every nook and cranny in America and our children especially are at risk. Let's do something about this violent epidemic that is killing and injuring our children. Let's make ending gun violence our righteous cause.
