This Memorial Day, Let's Honor the Fallen by Ending Gun Violence
I woke up this Memorial Day thinking not of fallen soldiers, but of fallen children. I thought of the 19 children and 2 teachers killed in Uvalde. Then I thought of the 10 people killed in a Buffalo, New York supermarket -- parents and grandparents, just going to the grocery store. Then I remembered the Taiwanese church shooting in Southern California: 1 dead and 5 injured as they gathered in a place of worship. These innocent victims of gun violence and the many others like them have paid the price of our inaction. You might even say they've paid the price of our freedom. When I do think of those military men and women who died defending our nation and its values of democracy, liberty, and justice, I can only think, what a waste. Is this what they died to protect? When American soldiers gave their lives to defend the United States, did they do so for a nation in which mass shootings are so common as to feel like an ordinary occurrence? When our soldiers died to liberate people fro