Photo Credit: Screen shot
I put the kids in the car. I am outside on the phone. I call again. Mercy of mercies, my wife answers. She is trembling as she speaks. “There’s a shooter, Shmuley, right outside a store we’re in. The salesperson saw him. He was carrying an AK-47, holding it in the air. We heard about 6 shots. We’re terrified. Where are you? Get out. Get out of the mall. Are the kids OK?”

An employee that was hiding with my wife and daughter drive them to a nearby supermarket where we are reunited. Seeing them safe fills me with gratitude and gladness. The smaller children are thrilled to see their mother. Their tears end but, traumatized, they are not smiling.

We hear on the news that noone has been injured. We go back to the parking lot – police all around us – to retrieve my wife’s car and we return home in safety.

Advertisement




But how long will it be until the next shooting, and what will we finally do as a nation to prevent it?

As a boy of about nine I watched a police officer murdered right in front of me in Miami Beach, Florida. It was April 1st, April Fool’s Day, which ever since has been a day of trauma for me. I even took my wife and children to the spot where he died. I shall never forget the sound of the gunshot that echoed so loudly that it nearly broke my eardrums.

And now again I am traumatized by a shooting.

How many more will die before America finally wakes up?

Advertisement

1
2
3
SHARE
Previous articleRunoff Vote in 38 Israeli Towns Wednesday
Next articleChassidic Woman Wins Montreal Council Race
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," whom The Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international bestselling author of 30 books including his most recent “The Israel Warrior.” Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.