I’m sitting here, almost speechless, not really knowing where to start.  My heart is so heavy.

I work at a community college.  In fact, I sit at the front information desk of the student center, the main focal point of the whole campus.  I just sit out in the open, one of the first people anyone visiting campus would see.  We just happened to have a professional development meeting over campus safety scheduled for Friday morning, the day after a student went on a mass shooting spree at a community college in Oregon, killing 9 and seriously injuring 9 more.  How unsettling.  I think of some of the “crazies” who my coworkers and I see and deal with on a regular basis.  You just never know what someone’s dealing with…

Did you know there’s been something like 275 days in 2015 and almost 300 mass shootings (meaning 4+ victims)?  We’ve only been able to go 8 days in a row this year (April 8-15) without a mass killing.

Do you realize how insane this is??  This isn’t normal!  Other industrialized, developed nations don’t have these sorts of issues.

We are obviously doing something wrong.  What are we doing as a society that we are producing people filled with such anger and hate and rage and FEAR?!

I’ve had a gun pointed to my head maliciously before.  Have you?  I feared for my life as I was attacked and assaulted, fighting my ass off and responding in ways I never thought I would.  I was one of the lucky ones who got away alive.

My parents met me at the hospital when they heard what happened.  I think Mom made that hour and a half drive in about 45 minutes.  As they were checking me over, making sure I really was ok, I assured them I was fine.  I was just still in shock of what had happened.

“How did this happen?” I asked them.  “What happened to this 16 year old kid that made him think it was ok to point a gun at a girl’s head, attempt to rape and rob her, and then just carry on about his day?  What did he experience in his life that made him think it was ok to do something like this to another person?”

THAT is the number one problem we are facing right now.  We are creating terrible people!  Why??  What’s wrong??  This is the first thing we need to pray and meditate on.  Not guns or politics.  Why are people being filled with such fear and anger?  And what can we do to stop it?

The second problem we have is our inability to simply admit that yes, it is a gun problem as well.  It’s easier to get a gun in our country than it is to get a driver’s license.  Or birth control as Amy Schumer hilariously points out in this tragically accurate video:

Before I continue, I just want to give some resources that I’ve found that should help bring to light the fact that we really do have an issue with guns in this country.  This gunman in Oregon had 6 guns on him on campus and another 7 at his home.  Thirteen guns total.  13!  Why does anyone need that many?

Here’s a glimpse of 2015 and all the mass shootings leading up to the most recent one on Oct. 1.

Read the full article here.

During his address to the nation in the wake of the shooting, President Obama urged reporters to compare the number of deaths by guns in the US to the number of deaths by terrorism in the US.  Here are two results:

More on that one here.

Lastly, please take a minute to read this article from Rolling Stone.  It makes some great points about our need to rethink this whole gun control issue.

Getting back to what I was talking about before – this is a comprehensive issue.  It’s more than guns.  It’s more than needing God or Jesus in our country.  What our country needs more of is love.  We don’t need more guns.  We don’t need more Christians.  We don’t need more laws.  What we need to do is fill this country with so much love that these evil things can’t exist anymore.  They won’t happen because we will no longer have people in this country who feel alone, helpless, unworthy, and unloved.

It’s a gun issue.  It’s a heart issue.  It’s a love issue.

So spread some love today.  Pray and meditate on love and peace.  According to a study done in the 1990’s in Washington, D.C., it could actually help reduce crime.  Crime went down over 20% during an 8-week time period of focused meditation in the area.  Love can and will overcome.  Help create a world where we don’t feel the need to carry a gun in order to protect ourselves – because we know there’s nothing to be afraid of.