From Thoughts and Prayers to Real Leadership
By Dr Salam Al-Marayati
President
MPAC
US

To God we Belong and to God we Shall Return.
Today, 18 children and one teacher in Uvalde, Texas did not go home to their families after school. And with each passing hour, we learn of more victims of this tragedy who have perished.

Instead, they returned to their Creator, and their families will grieve a grief no one can fathom. 

An armed man walked into Robb Elementary School where children were only beginning their lives as students, and he gunned them down along with a teacher. 

The numbness of the thoughts and prayers response has become a morally deficient answer to this kind of horror. 
The President declared that flags be flown half-staff. The Vice President called for sensible public policy. The fact that our political leadership is impotent in addressing gun violence and unable to even mention gun control in their statements is part of the problem. 

Some say taking action on addressing access to guns would be an infringement upon the Second Amendment. Let’s at least have that discourse in Congress without allowing extremists and psychotics to take it out on school children.  

Whether it is what happened today or in Buffalo just last week, our response and reaction must be more targeted than those behind these assaults on the soul of our nation and the heart of our humanity. 

As a nation, we have fought some of the most difficult battles abroad. We must ask ourselves, as a nation, can we unite to fight this war at home? Our answer must be yes, or our democracy will be in peril.