ACPA Responds to Tragedy in Orlando, Florida

When we refuse to do what we are supposed to do at the right time, the consequence is that of pain and tragedy.
Sunday Adelaja

ACPA members grieve the tragic loss of life and injuries of more than 100 people in Orlando, Florida. We extend our deepest sympathy to the families of all who were lost and injured, to their families and friends. Once again, hatred fueled violence and an assault rifle was the weapon of choice.  Until we individually and collectively decide to eliminate the laws that make it possible to purchase these weapons as readily as we can buy a license to fish for trout, people will continue to die at the hands of individuals who want to kill and do so quickly.   It remains our right to buy these weapons and it is never our right to use them in the name of hatred.  It is time to prevent access to weapons of destruction for we cannot identify and stop those who cannot or will not separate their right to own from their choice to destroy. 

Whether a hate crime by legal definition, a terrorist attack by the criteria established by Homeland Security or a moment of dissociative angst that split heart and soul from reason,  the murderer's day is done. 

We remain to grieve, to support and to choose a different way forward. If our federal government cannot achieve the limits we need, let us achieve them community by community. 

We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man