I don't know how I feel. Confused. First, for any distant relatives who have been worried, I'm fine. I wasn't even on campus that day, so I didn't get caught in the shootings or the lockdown.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, there was another college shooting last week. This time it was not only in Seattle but at a school I'm affiliated with. I taught a class for them last quarter in the very building where the shooting occurred, and I had been on campus the previous day. One nineteen year old man died. Two people were seriously injured. One man intervened and stopped the shooter with pepper spray and tackling him.

Confused. Very confused. It feels realer to me than all the other murders I've been reading about this week -- California, India, south Seattle -- but still not quite real. It was so random, it could easily have been me or easily not. There's no right street to walk on, no right cafe to sit in, no right person to avoid eye contact with that will keep me safe from gun violence in America. I live in a very safe neighborhood. This school was a very safe school. And we are not safe.

Really, I want to rescind the second amendment and melt down all the guns. Yup, gun owners, I am your worst fears come true. But don't worry. I have absolutely no power. I can't even get semi-automatic weapons off the streets. I can't even get background checks for mentally ill people passed. Forget the guns, I can't even get mental health services for the mentally ill.

Wow, I guess I'm not confused. I guess I'm really really angry. at another senseless death. at my impotence. at how the conversation seems to have skipped over STOP THE GUNS and jumped straight to managing our grief and coming together as a community.

And I have to say SPU is doing a wonderful job of coming together as a community. I have actually been reading all the emails from the president, provosts, head of human services, and they have been thoughtful, heartfelt, respectful of different ways of grieving while emphasizing their commonality, their faith in God. They may even be addressing guns in all the prayer circles and support meetings they have been offering. I have just chosen not to go.

But even if I sat in a circle and ranted about guns (hey, I'm ranting pretty loudly now), there would still be guns in the U.S. And people would be dying from them for absolutely no reason.

I feel angry, disenfranchised, powerless, afraid, and sad all stuffed in a big box of denial. A box I seem to have opened today.