I'm getting on my soapbox to put thoughts and feelings into words about what happened in the last 24 hours at MSU. These are my thoughts and my feelings.
My heart is broken for those who are no longer with us and those who were injured. My heart is broken for the MSU students and the East Lansing community. What happened last night shut down MSU and many nearby school districts. An action of one person has not only affected lives directly by their actions, but also so many other people.
This person was a coward. They did what they did to defenseless students who were going about their day. This person likely had no connection to any of the students or the university. This person has now made a name for themselves in the growing list of cowards who have done the same thing.
I'm thankful for the fast response the local police had in responding to the situation. I'm thankful many of the police from nearby cities helped respond to the situation. Their fast response likely helped prevent more people from getting hurt from this coward.
As the day went on today, my sorrow started to turn to anger. I'm angry this coward did what he did. I'm angry shootings like this are becoming more frequent across the USA. I'm angry there hasn't been more done to help stop these from happening. Schools now go through active shooter drills, just like they do for tornado and fires. Law enforcement now go through active shooter drills to help better respond to situations like this. We're working backwards and dealing with the effects of this instead of working on the cause of it.
I'm angry about the amount of attention the press gives cowards like this. They don't deserve it. I have found there is more press about this coward than there has been talking about those who were directly impacted from this. I understand many families don't want the spotlight on them in times like this. There still needs to be a better way for the press to do their job in situations like this though.
We as a country need to do better. We need to be better. Other countries don't have this happening as often as we do. What makes us so unfortunately special out of all the other countries in the world? Why haven't we tried to learn from other countries about how to prevent this from happening, time and time again? It's obvious, one of the largest and smartest countries in the world is missing something these other countries are doing.
I'm getting off my soapbox now. Being able to put my thoughts into words has helped some in making sense of everything that has happened within the last 24 hours.