If you don't want to buy this shirt, just be thankful no student is holding a gun to your head.

So WHY did i make this shirt?

Well first there’s the obvious allusion to the plight of the NRA. PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE– period.

Now that that’s been cleared up, WHY did i make this shirt?

How could i NOT?
Where to start this social censure…

1) For the irony. For some reason we are more likely to expect the black man walking around after the sun has gone down to have already killed more people than the nice non-black boy with the backpack could ever think about.
Might I also point out that students are people, like any other people, and are prone to having “issues” like any other issue-riddled people. Why is it so shocking to us to find that these issue-riddled people can go to SCHOOL?!

2) At the defense of the disparaged. Tragedy strikes everywhere, every day. Why is it that the school incidences are portrayed as far MORE tragic than any other? Are the families and friends of students more susceptible to sadness & loss? I consider the week-long coverage of such events to be salt in the wounds of those experiencing “lesser” misfortune.

3) For the ignorance and the hypocrisy. Aside from the dozens upon dozens of useless accounts of somebody hearing about somebody else hearing gunshots, the only other notion we get bombarded with is “WHY?!”
WHY would be great, if it were sincere… but it sadly never is. It’s just the loudest cog in the drama-machine. Why did he do it? What was his motive? Will we EVER know? So keep bellowing out your scathing “WHYs?!”

The “WHY” phenomena, as far as I can tell, exists for 2 reasons. 1) So the media has another angle to smother us with. 2) So people have something more tangible to blame. Maybe they’re one in the same. Admit it or not, people LOVE to point their disgusting, dirty little self-righteous fingers. And of course it’s much easier to do when we know specifically what peoples’ problems are. You’ll be hard-pressed to find somebody that ACTUALLY cares why he did it. To me, “why” equates to concern– concern for the individual that for whatever reason was driven to do whatever he felt he had to do– NOT for what garish abnormality must have existed within such a horrible person, as everyone else is so eager to prove. It is not a popular perspective, but the initial pain inflicted truly was on the killer himself, before he was compelled to kill.

Think of the people you pass in life. those you know; those you don’t… is it just possible you’ve done something to contribute to their collective misery? we can never know exactly why people do what they do. But for some reason we as a society find it so much more morbidly satisfying when it’s a student committing the travesties.

Mind you I’m neither making light of or condoning ANY incidents, past, present or future. I just feel that right or wrong, fathomable or inconceivable, everyone has a reason for their actions. It seems that all too often the ones we are given are steeped in self-serving drama, & I don’t dig it.

I know there are those of you out there that exist for the sole purpose of seeking out things to be offended by. If you are one of those unfortunate people, have at it– I couldn’t be more pleased to provide the fodder for your perverse little game. Otherwise, I hope you can appreciate this for whatever way it may speak to you. Because once you wear it, YOUR voice is the one that’s heard.