Commentary: End the senseless killings across U.S.
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I’ve had it. I’m tired of it.
This needs to stop.
On May 14, a mass shooting occurred in Buffalo, New York, at Tops Friendly Market, where 10 Black people were killed and three other people were injured. I spent 22 wonderful years in Buffalo where my two daughters were raised, and I still have colleagues and friends there. This is personal to me.
Then in the blink of an eye in Uvalde, Texas, 19 schoolchildren and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School. It didn’t stop there.
On June 1, four people were killed and multiple others injured in a mass shooting inside a medical office building on a hospital campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The gunman targeted a surgeon he blamed for pain. It marked the 233rd mass shooting in the United States this year. That’s right, 233rd.
I don’t think it will shock anybody that by the time this commentary is published, there will be another mass shooting.
I feel like Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, when he sat down with the press before his team played in the NBA semifinals. If you haven’t heard his comments on the Robb Elementary School killings, you should take the time. I’m sure many people across the country feel the same as Kerr. His comment that “this all needs to stop, and something needs to be done” is obvious.
I thought something would be done a decade ago. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, where a 20-year-old man shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children aged between 6 and 7 years. A colleague of mine at the time said if we didn’t do anything serious after the murder of those children, it will never happen. It looks like my colleague was right. It has been 10 years and nothing has been done to end these senseless killings.
I’ve never written a politically oriented commentary in my career. Until now. I just can’t stay quiet. We shouldn’t forget the words of Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address. His words honored the soldiers who sacrificed their lives in order “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.” That’s right, the people have the power to make changes in this country. That was demonstrated in the 1960s.
The president has only so much power for change. On the other hand, we the people have the power to vote into state and federal government positions individuals who also can’t take it any longer.
I’m not asking for another march on Washington. I’m asking for people to vote with their conscience and end the senseless killings in what is still the greatest country on the planet.
Don’t let this continue. Take the right that you have been given and vote. Remember, it’s government by the people.
Stay safe.
For more information:
Nicholas J. Petrelli, MD, FACS, is Bank of America endowed medical director of ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute and associate director of translational research at Wistar Cancer Institute. He also serves as Associate Editor of Surgical Oncology for HemOnc Today. He can be reached at npetrelli@christianacare.org.
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