Another School Shooting at Virginia Tech...What Now?

What is it going to take to find peace in this world?

Over 30 people are dead or wounded at Virginia Tech. Another school shooting. Another student, in anger, ends his own life and the lives of others. Another Columbine.

When are we going to get a clue? For crying out loud, be kind, people. Play nice.

I am a mother of four children, elementary school age. I walk my children, as well as neighbor children to school every day, to keep them safe. On Fridays, my children and I practice "emergency drills" with my children, where we practice meeting at a certain spot, and then walking home away from the school.

Why do we do this? In case someone walks into my children's school and decides to start shooting.

This is the world that we live in now.

I used to get more wound up than I do by news such as this. I would work to be as prepared for any situation that could possibly happen. Sometimes it even got to the point where I would have dreams, nightmare survival scenarios that my brain would set up for me, then step back and say, "Okay...what are you going to do now?" The last time I had a dream like that, I told my brain that I would die, and please let me get some sleep now, thank you very much.

We live in a land of tremendous freedoms, and I am very grateful for that. Yet these freedoms are daily being whittled down by the angry minority who decides to pick up a gun and start firing into whatever crowd they happen to be in. Who straps on a bomb and tries to get control of an airplane full of innocent people.

I can't control the decisions of others. Ultimately, if someone close to me decides that today's the day and he or she is going to take as many people with them as possible when they go, chances are good I'm going to go too. There's no stopping someone who's willing to die.