Canada isn’t bulletproof

“I’m gonna tell you once and listen son. As long as I’m alive and breathing, You won’t take my guns.”

— From “Guns,” by U.S. country singer Justin Moore

On Wednesday I took a stroll around the garden before work and marvelled at what a couple of sunny days and some warmth can do. Tender shoots pushing up through the soil — the dark reds of peonies, the purple nubs of hostas, the green, sword-like blades of irises, still dreaming of their leaves unfurling, petals emerging in a blaze of glory.

The columbine is well on its way, green foliage swaying nonchalantly in the breeze.

Ironic, now, to think that columbine comes from the Latin word “columba,” meaning dove, when what you think of when you hear that word is not a sign of peace but a school that has become synonymous with a mass shooting.

And guns violence has struck again in America.

Ten killed and three injured in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 14.

Nineteen children and two teachers killed in Uvalde, Texas just 10 days later.

It’s not lost on me that I’m finding signs of hope in the garden just as too many Americans are burying theirs in the ground.

The shooting suspect in Buffalo and the shooter in Uvalde, both just 18 years old, the latter dead.

It’s hard to think how someone so young could become so twisted up inside. Twisted enough to want to kill people because of their skin colour or just for no good reason at all.

In Uvalde, just hours before they were slain in their classroom, kids like fourth-grader Amerie Jo Garza were posing proudly with the certificates they earned for making the honour roll.

Ten-year-old Amerie Jo was shot while calling 911.

“Her best friend was covered in her blood,” her grandmother, Berlinda Irene Arreola, told news website The Daily Beast.

In Buffalo, the victims were shopping for groceries, among them 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield, who stopped at the store after visiting her husband at a nursing home, which she had done day in and day out for years.

“How do we tell him the love of his life — his primary caretaker, the person who kept him alive for the last eight years — how do we tell him that she’s gone?” her son, Garnell Whitfield Jr., said in an interview with NPR (National Public Radio).

“Not just that she’s gone, but that she’s gone at the hands of a white supremacist, of a terrorist, of an evil person who’s allowed to live among us and keep perpetuating this mess. How do we tell him that?”

How can anyone explain what’s happening in the United States with disturbing regularity?

Here are some chilling statistics compiled by CNN:

“As of Tuesday, the Gun Violence Archive reports at least 213 mass shootings in 2022.” (Involving four or more people injured or killed, not including the shooter).

“This is at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in 2022.”

“So far, there have been more mass shootings than days in 2022.”

“Tuesday’s massacre is the deadliest school shooting since 2012, when 26 children and adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.”

As Canadians, it’s natural to want to distance and differentiate ourselves from the gun violence in the States when we hear about it.

Alex Munter, the president of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, tweeted on Wednesday:

“Here at @CHEO — Ottawa’s pediatric trauma centre — staff can’t remember the last time a child came in with a gunshot wound. In the US, guns are now the #1 cause of death for children. Subjecting kids to such violence isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice.”

While we mourn with our American neighbours and rage at the senselessness and needlessness of shooting crimes, we must remember that while our own gun violence problem is nowhere near the same magnitude, we are not immune.

Our country’s worst mass shooting occurred near Portapique, N.S., just two years ago.

In Halifax Regional Municipality, gun violence doubled in 2021 over any other year, and those killed included an eight-year-old child.

In the St. John’s metro area, guns are being used more often in crimes than ever before.

In Buffalo, civil rights activists say the root of the problem needs to be addressed, including the fomentation of hate on the internet.

As we watch our own newscasts uncover blatant racism and other strains of loathing, we must always remember: hate knows no boundaries.