One week isn't enough time to get over a mass shooting - especially one like the heartless masacre that savaged Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
See, when it first occurred, I couldn't even really begin to grapple with it. I couldn't think about it or talk about it.
It took time for all that grief and pain to set in. And then I spent most of this week writing my way through the depression, trying to figure out what to say to readers.
Do I just talk about stocks like nothing else is happening? Do I try to set aside this rage and take an aloof, analytical approach?
It's been tough to figure out.
And then, just when I was about ready to try and get back down to business, I woke up this morning to news of another mass shooting.
This time, on Wednesday, some psycho shot up a hospital in Tulsa and killed four people.
Add in the shooting that killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket on May 14, and we've had three mass shootings in as many weeks.
It's going to be a really long summer if this persists. A long year, in fact, if any of us are still alive to talk about it by 2023.
So...
Are we going to do something about it?
And if so, is that action going to be meaningful?
Because, to be honest, the sheer stupidity of the "solutions" I've heard proposed in the wake of these tragedies has really compounded my frustration and hopelessness.
After Uvalde, one guy said we should just have a single door that goes in and out of schools, creating a massive bottleneck for teachers and students to negotiate.
What an awesome idea that definitely won't cause any problems when people try to flee from the next school shooter.
Other genius ideas include arming teachers.
I don't know about you guys, but I remember my teachers and there aren't many that I would have trusted with a firearm around kids.
Meanwhile, the teachers I did trust would never have wanted that burden.
These are people - real people with real names - like Mrs. McLaughlin, Miss Connelly, Mr. Klawinski, Mr. Moderski, and Dr. Elmore. They were educators in their 50s and 60s, who dedicated their lives to teaching students, not eliminating them.
Even if they did want to, they were hardly a handgun away from being John Wick. They, like most teachers in this country, lacked both the capability and the desire to be sharpshooters.
And, truly, given their meager pay and all the flak they already have to take from parents and their kids, it's offensive that we'd even suggest that they double as a security force for our nation's youth.
The fact that they're already acting as human shields for our kids is messed up enough, thank you very much.
Maybe we have armed professionals then...
Problem there is that there simply aren't enough. There are too many schools to guard. And beyond that, too many churches, supermarkets, hospitals, clinics, daycare centers, bus stops, subway stations...
Heck, several of the places victimized by mass shootings even had guards in place and they still failed to stop carnage.