Do you think today's shooting will have Republicans tightening up gun laws any time soon???

I don’t know how your day went, but mine was weird. From the minute I opened my eyes, even after a full eight hour, uninterrupted nights sleep (uninterrupted because I convinced YB to NOT drink tequila every single night, and low and behold he doesn’t snore when he doesn’t drink!) Regardless of that I still managed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. My entire day was permeated with a FU attitude. I even had a lunch meeting for one of the charities I work with and couldn’t find my hospitable, think outside the box, raise money idea mojo.

I’ve been B-flat all day.

It definitely didn’t help that our family group chat began, bright and early, with an announcement that the boss of Mikaela’s roommates “big” was shot. WTAF? How? Where? What? When?

I’m not sure if you know how sororities work, but each girl has a “big.” A “big” is Somebody older than them who “picks” them to be their “little” sister. Turns out one of the three roommates who live with Mikaela got a job on Capitol Hill straight out of university and works for Steve Scalise. As in in his office. And knows him. He is her boss.

So of course our family group chat blew up with details, and more importantly upset. Thank God the “big” wasn’t in Virginia, although the roommate and the “big” were both supposed to go to the actual baseball game. Which, as you can imagine freaked both of the young women out, with all sorts of questions.

It was crazy to have our family chat be all about what was blowing up the media world, except we had the inside edge, because Mikaela knows the girl who works in his office. Let me tell you this. It is wild to know somebody who actually works with a shooting victim. It’s pretty surreal. We’re from Canada. We don’t know shooting victims. Gun crime happens here but it’s usually directly related to crime. So far we’ve been incredibly lucky, as a country, and have not had to endure rampant, random gun violence the way America has had to deal with it.

I’m going to preface this next section of my blog with this disclaimer; “I don’t think that there is any person on this planet who ‘deserves’ to be shot. I don’t believe ‘an eye for an eye’ I also don’t buy the entire belief that ‘the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.’ My heart and prayers go out to every single Republican senator, etc, etc who was present at that baseball practice and subsequently were victims of terrorism and hatred. I also applaud the Capitol Hill police who did an excellent job of containing the violence. I don’t condone anybody, for any reason walking into a public space and shooting people done simply because their beliefs do not align. I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemy. It is wrong.”

It must change.

All that being said I will say this one thing, and Mikaela completely disagrees with me; but I hope that NOW, NOW that the Republicans have finally been a direct target of gun violence, where somebody walked in asked if they were democrats or the GOP, and then began firing when he was informed that they were GOP’s, that they will take a more serious, hard line look at gun control. I’ve thought for years, that if the Republican party was ever directly affected by random gun violence, like the children and families of Sandy Hook were, they might change their tune about their completely asinine lack of vetting of gun owners in their country. I would never wish gun violence on anybody, but in my opinion it was just a matter of time before the incredibly serious issue of gun violence hit that party square between the eyes.

And then there was today.

Bright and early, before many of us had even started on our days, a gunman opened fire on a bunch of men in the middle of their baseball practice.

JUST. LIKE. THAT.

That’s how easy it is.

That’s how scary it is.

That’s how vulnerable EVERYBODY is.

My immediate hopeful reaction was; “this will do it. This will shake the blinders off the eyes of all the Republicans who refuse to vote in safer gun legislation. This will be the wake up call they all need.”

To which my incredibly wise, and educated youngest girl replied: “Mom are you kidding me, this will further prove their point that everybody should be armed. Because if they had all had guns, it never would have happened.”

And you know what my friends, sadly, I think she’s right. Even this incident today won’t be enough to get the GOP to change their ways.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm,