In situational awareness training, we are drilled to see the whole board and to understand all factors. We are taught to take every measure that protects the team and the mission goals. When it comes to the safety of our children, the only thing that matters is that they go to school, work hard, are taught by teachers invested in education, and that they return home safely each day.

None of us can comprehend the soul destroying, gut wrenching horror experienced by the parents of the children murdered at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. Any politician, saying, “we must do better” while reading from slim cue cards, is as insulting as they are scripted.

The first step in solving any problem, is admitting that one exists. We must be aware of the situation so that we can prevent the mass murder of more children in America.

First Awareness — This is terrorism. Every mass casualty school shooting is an act of domestic terrorism. Incomprehensibly, we are squeamish to call it what it is. At school children should meet their friends, and not the face of terror.

Second Awareness — Mental illness. Our national failure to destigmatized mental illness must cease. We treat and insure diseases of the mind differently than the rest of the body. Research funding is less aggressive as if the mind is not part of the same human. This data gap has hamstrung the authorities in their awareness of those urgently needing treatment, a few of whom go on to commit these hideous crimes.

The ever-increasing political choke-hold on research, creates absurd limitations including the 1996 Dickey Amendment that prohibits the CDC from conducting public health research related to the control of firearms. This 22 year research hole has cost the lives of children.

Third Awareness — Enough is enough. It would be easy for me, a working parent living in comfortable Bath, to generalize, demonize and even satirize the social or political motivations of one side just as ‘they’, might do so to me. This accomplishes nothing.

There is no “one side” or the “other side.” There is no “my side” or “your side.” I am not the “blue side” against my neighbor’s “red side.” Whether our kids are in public or private schools. Whether they are in Bath, or Brunswick; Woolwich, Georgetown or in Parkland, Florida, there is only the irrefutable fact that our children’s safety comes first.

Fourth Awareness — We have failed as voters. Currently there is a movement for reform. The easily identified options to “limit” the sale of bump-stocks, or “discuss” magazine size, or “consider” age limits come up time and time again but these are the low hanging fruit. They are easily announced, rarely acted upon, but are not the real issue.

As much as we are blessed to live in a representative democracy, our electoral system comes at a cost. While the Left gets to grouse about the Right, FOX News and their love for the NRA. The Right gets to hit the Left with Public Broadcasting, the NEA, and their frequently clumsy candidates. It costs eyeballs, column inches and it costs votes. The real price of a representative democracy is the multi-million dollar cost to stand for office.

Until we reform our election system, the influence of big money will not be reduced. Until it is we will not face the regulatory, and therefore, the Constitutional issues surrounding firearms ownership.

Fifth Awareness — Our political reality. The legislative side of the three-legged-stool is circuitous and absurdly complicated. We watch this in excruciating detail in the beast called the 24-hour news cycle. The dismal performance of our elected officials to be adults and effectively legislate is astounding. I am not, however, naïve and know that this is an endless grind. The leadership of both major political parties are squarely to blame.

In their Upside Down, compromise is weakness rather than what we might call actual governance.

Sixth Awareness — We are in control. We have a voice. Though we disagree on many things, we must say, “This is not acceptable.” We must say that, “This is just plain wrong and it stops now.”

Children should not go to school and wonder if they will be the victims of terrorism.

We have a voice and we are in control. We can cause change because no matter the advertising blitz, no matter the social media, no matter what one side screams at the other, we still have the most consistent voice this country has ever known. We can vote.

A politician wanting our vote must accept that there is no greater issue than protecting children. This issue is beyond political meaning. It is the issue of their careers and is worth any risk. That risk might include losing their seat, but it is that important.

To say, or act, otherwise is disingenuous and shows a particular sort of craven indifference.

We have a voice.

Roo Dunn and his family live in Bath. Their children attend the schools of RSU1.