…is a nice pipe dream. Before I get any further into this, one absolute statement: No one should ever be shot for speaking their truth. No one should be shot while trying to learn at school. No one should be shot or the victim of violence, full stop. But that’s a pipe dream world even Star Trek could barely conceive of, let alone our current world, but it needs to be stated.

A white guy was shot yesterday. Also (yet another) school shooting happened. Good guys with guns stopped neither. Can you guess which scene really outraged folks the most? Which one filled my Facebook feed with shouted calls for thoughts and prayers, for “now’s not the time to talk about gun control!” for “Be sensitive, a family is in mourning!” Which one garnered a blustery sermon from our President, calls for flags to fly at half mast, a Presidential Medal of Honor?

Nope, not more dead and traumatized kids, another school bearing the fear of dead kids, safety ripped away in seconds. Not an entire community filled with dread and uncertainty, joining a too long (when will it be too long? When will it be enough?) list of schools where shooters have shattered the notion that schools are safe places for all.

It’s a straight, white, “Christian” “man” who made his millions by being as un-Christlike as possible, attacking (verbally) as many folks not exactly like him as he could. No one was really safe from his vitriol, and now we’re supposed to mourn this “Great American’s” violent passing? His own God is an iron, and he’s found that out in the hardest of ways. I find it hard to mourn for a person with so ugly and warped a soul, someone who punched down and refused to use his platform to make the world even a tiny bit better for anyone, someone responsible for such quotes as these:

“I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to think, boy, I hope he is qualified.” “…hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That’s important. We want the American way of life, which is, by the way, Christendom.” “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up new age term that does a lot of damage.” Kirk said: “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.” “…God’s perfect law says gay people should be stoned to death.”

I mourn instead for the people in that crowd, who now carry the real and direct fear of being shot at the next concert they attend, the next fair or public speaker or just a nice day in a public park. I mourn for the community now carrying forward those most American of scars, dead kids for someone’s ideals. I mourn for those who were target’s of a dead man’s anger and hate. I mourn that this is where our country is at at the same time I’m sending my own son to high school, that a man who spews filth his entire career garners more outrage and sympathy than dead kids. I mourn for the idea that we’ve taken another big step farther away from being able to resolve our nation’s past and current and continuing sins without more violence, for the idea that no one should be shot for their speech, no matter how wretched.

Today I will put my head down, muddle through my job as best I can, volunteer my time for a good cause, listen to my son practice his music after school, and end the day breathing in the quiet peace of the barn, telling my pony she is pretty and strong and good, and hold out stubborn hope that we can craft better days ahead. If you want a better nation, be better citizens.