“My Friend Got Hit”

“My friend, Victor, saved me though, because he laid on top of me, but he got hit. My friend got hit in the back.”

These are the words of Weston Halsne, a ten year old boy who attends school in Minneapolis Minnesota and was at Mass with his schoolmates when a shooter opened fire killing an eight year old and a ten year old and injuring seventeen others at Annunciation Church. (You can see the video of his interview here.)

I was dumbfounded when I first saw the interview on television. I was equally angry and heartbroken that such shootings have become routine for our children. If you listen to the clip, the young boy sounds like a grizzled war veteran. You might mistake his words for those of a special operations soldier talking about a fire fight in Afghanistan. He is so measured and matter of fact. Grateful to his friend, perhaps a bit in shock, but telling his story as if this is just what happens when you go to school.

This crisis in our schools has been around for at least twenty-five years. A generation of adults have grown up with school shooter drills as just a routine part of their day. And still nothing changes.

Shame on us. As a society we value guns above our children. Only in America.