We can be the solution, or we can be part of the problem: Time to choose

Give me a solution that works to stop the murdering of innocent Americans.?Provide me with some evidence that you have an idea that will stop the carnage in our schools, grocery stores, shopping malls, churches, and homes.

Convince me that you are not only committed to stopping the mass shootings that shock us to the core but that you also have a solution to the daily murders that take place in Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, New York City, Los Angeles, and every other major city in America.?

Chicago, since the beginning of the year, has had 204 people die by gunfire.?It’s no less horrific for the 204 families whose loved ones were murdered one-by-one than the families in Uvalde and Buffalo whose loved ones were killed within seconds of one another.

I am with anybody who has a solution to the single murder on a street corner and with anybody who has a solution to the multiple murders in a school.?I have no ideology to protect.?I have no partisan position to uphold.?I’m in favor of the 2nd Amendment but every other Amendment in the Constitution, too, which doesn’t mean I can’t be convinced there’s something we can do to deal with this stain on America.

But your solution can’t be a Facebook post, a tweet on Twitter, a seething rant on the floor of the U.S. Senate, a grandstanding gimmick at a press conference or an angry monologue before a basketball game.

Prayers and thoughts aren’t working any better than rhetorical defiance on social media. ?

A hashtag won’t stop a bullet any better than a viral video.

If your solution is to “ban handguns” or “ban assault weapons” or “ban (fill in the blank guns or devices on guns)” give me some evidence that isn’t anecdotal or your gut or some other human emotion that proves it will actually do something.?

And, if your solution doesn’t deal with the root cause of what is going on with the daily murders of individuals as well as the all-too-frequent mass murders of human beings – the hatred, bigotry, racism, anger, sense of human disconnection, broken homes, mental illness, lack of empathy, absence of humanity, then I don’t know that you’re serious about finding an answer that will work.

If you’re a Democrat and think Republicans are to blame for all of this horror, or a Republican who thinks Democrats want to take away the rights of Americans, you’re not serious about a solution.?

If you’re a talk show host, a television personality, a newspaper editorial board, and you want to simply mirror the god-awful intransigence of our political and governmental leaders, you aren’t serious about a solution, either.

So, I am ready for a conversation, a discussion, a dialogue – whatever we choose to call it – that is an opportunity to review ideas, understand how your solutions would not only work but could actually be implemented and see if we can reach a consensus on something where we can get more people than not to embrace it and make it a reality.

I will be honest and transparent – I don’t have a solution.?I wish I did.?

I do think part of any solution, though, is going to have to start with the basics of human decency.?Something that has been harder and harder to come by in America for far too long.

I see human decency every single day in the work that I do for Spare Key.?I see it with my staff, my Board of Directors and the donors who help families facing a medical crisis.?I know there is human decency in abundance in America.

But, that decency gets drowned out by the lack of it more and more every single day.?

The young man who murdered so many innocent lives yesterday lost his moral compass long ago, as did the young man who murdered so many innocent lives in Buffalo.

The next person, young, middle-age or old who murders a single individual because of an argument, an act of road rage, simply because they can, long ago lost the meaning of the dignity of human life.

That there are those who defile the dignity of human life by the dozens is no more tragic than those who defile it one human life at a time with their pointless excuses, rationalization, or reason for doing so.

I will, sadly, once again begin to look to find ways that I can be a part of a solution to this failure in American life.?I am open to those of you who were willing to read this to have a respectful conversation about what can be done to change what absolutely must change.?

If you want to add the sorrow by expressing your anger, insults, intolerance, and grievances please know that you are part of the problem – not the solution.?

And, until each of us is willing to be a part of the solution then we are all part of the problem.?