I’m nervous to write and share this post because it touches on a highly sensitive and divisive issue – though, I don’t understand why. It’s a subject that’s put me in standoff debates and heated arguments with people I love and respect. This post isn’t an invitation for arguments, reasoning or perspectives. I feel compelled to write about it because the only thing I’m looking for at this point is a dramatic shift in reality. Maybe a miracle.

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This morning I woke up to news about Dylan Lyons, a 24-year-old Orlando TV journalist and UCF alumnus who was shot and killed while covering a shooting that took place earlier yesterday.

I didn’t know Dylan, but as a UCF grad who also studied and worked as a journalist, my heart hurts as if I did. Many of my friends and former professors knew him, and their grief and mourning filled my social feeds. I watched video clips of Central Florida reporters choking back tears during live broadcasts, broken because they lost a beloved colleague, afraid because it can and might happen to any one of them.

“If you knew Dylan, you knew he embodied journalism,” his college editor told NPR. “Integrity. Passion. Ethics. Speed. He meant so much to so many people.”

Dylan was so young. He was just starting out his career. He was about to get married. All of those exciting new experiences to come were taken away from him as he was doing his job, covering another shooting.

Another shooting.

Every day. Another shooting.

Are we not sick of it?

Gun violence and gun deaths are a very real problem in the United States of America.

That’s not to say this doesn’t happen anywhere else, because it does. Even in countries where guns are illegal, people are killed by guns. But the fact remains, we seem way too comfortable to watch things like this continue to happen every single day.

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time getting into statistics and politics in this post. I think everyone is smart enough to guess where I stand. This is just the only way I know how to respond to something so upsetting. 

The point is, a man who was just doing his job and hoping to make a difference in his community was shot and killed. And not just him, 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin and 9-year-old girl T’yonna Major. All senselessly murdered. All died by shooting.

To live in a reality that at any single moment I could be intentionally or unintentionally be killed by a bullet is outrageous. To know that my loved ones can be gunned down at work, in school, at church, while shopping, at a concert, or even in their own homes is terrifying. It’s unfathomable to hear about friends with school-aged children who have to mentally prepare their kids for active shooter scenarios at the bus stop. It’s sickening to think about possibly having that conversation with my future kids one day.

And the thing is, it doesn’t have to be like this.

We have opportunities and ways to reduce gun violence and gun-related deaths. We’re a smart country with smart people, how are we stalling to figure out the answer to this fatal problem? 

People are the ones pulling the trigger, but the fact remains that the gun is what causes death. The fascination, obsession and defense of guns over people will never make sense to me. And I feel helpless to think that the only things I can do are write this post, call an elected official and demand action that never seems to happen, and pray every night that nobody I know will be an added statistic to another shooting.

No silly selfie today. It doesn’t feel appropriate. Instead, a picture of Dylan.

My heart is with Dylan Lyons’ family, especially his fiancé, as well as the survivors of the shooting and their families. Here are Gofundme links to help the Lyons family and the Major family to cover funeral costs. And here is a list of evidence-based solutions for gun safety and actionable steps toward ending gun violence.

Every day, another one. But it doesn’t have to be like this.