The Moral Comfort Zone of Doing Absolutely Nothing

The last thing I want to do is politicize my blog about soft skills in the workplace, but our workplaces do not exist in a vacuum. I wrote this upon hearing about the latest shooting rampage at Seattle Pacific University. I welcome your comments but just ask that you keep it civil; bad enough that bereaved parent Richard Martinez has been accused of being a "media whore."

In this life, the response that annoys me the most sounds like, "It can't be done," or "It's never been done this way before." 

These rationalizations spawn complacencies that sound like practicality but are in fact moral laziness. It's a way of saying, "Why bother, it's too much work, so why even begin effort?" This latest shooting in Seattle reminds me of all such notions. "We're never going to gather up all the guns, so why bother.... Gun ownership is an American right, so don't even dare try.... Hey, let's not overlook the sanctity of the 2nd Amendment!... (and that morally exhausted old nellie) Guns don't kill people, people kill people." 

So, okay, let's just leave the situation as is. Let's not attempt any interim solutions to establish background-check protocols, to help the mentally ill, or to mitigate the stupefyingly easy access to automatic weapons already blessed by powerful special interest groups. Let's tsk-tsk-tsk but do nothing while our public servants are graded and bought up by those same groups. We'll just pretend that brazen self-service won't happen when they try to leverage political power on the next set of issues we feel strongly about .... We'll just keep fighting between ourselves, jutting out our chins as we parade our semi-automatics in public restaurants and retail stores, and calling each other out for stupidity when we line up on both sides of this argument. But here's the point you and I keep missing:

Both sides of the argument should be affronted that the gun violence discourse is no longer democratically owned. 

Whichever you believe, take a stand. Write or call your elected officials. Donate money to the group advocating the side of the argument you believe in. Maybe the politicians will listen to moderate centrist views versus the barking of the extremists. Encourage civil discourse on Facebook so everyone walks away learning something new versus feeling justified in polarization. 

We've got to start somewhere. The current situation is untenable and it's only getting worse. Fixing the gun violence problem is supposed to be hard work. The same
thinking that got us to this point of escalating death tolls is not the same thinking we'll need to get us out of this (literally) bloody mess. We are not going to please everyone, which is a tough way to begin collaborations, but I'd rather collaborate with you in the most contentious way than watch passively as special interest groups define the argument. Or stand with you, graveside, watching another parent bury a slain child.


If we continue to do nothing, to remain passive, then each of us — pro- and anti-gun control alike — should be prepared to look in the eye of every parent who's lost a child to gun violence, and say, "Here is what I believe. Now what are you going to do about it?" Try that and then talk to me about courage under fire. #notonemore