Another school shooting in America, this time in the small town of Uvalde, Texas. Our national motto for the slaughter of school children seems still to be: “Never again, until the next time.”

If only there had been some meaningful forewarning of the shooter’s capacity for violence — like a pattern of behavior consistent with antisocial personality disorder and the purchase of two AR-15 style weapons just days after his 18th birthday.

It is commendable that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, as seen in the news conference below, highlights the need for better access to mental health resources. At the same time, it’s utterly deplorable — though very much on brand for the Republican governor — that he makes no mention of access to firearms. In Abbott’s calculus, an assault rifle doesn’t kill children; a person with mental illness kills children.

All proceeds from the sale of the NFT representing this Mirror post will go to Sandy Hook Promise, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to end school shootings and create a culture change that prevents violence and other harmful acts that hurt children.

I had hoped to use a new feature teased by Mirror that would let me change the address of the funds recipient, so I could funnel contributions directly to Sandy Hook Promise. Unfortunately, that feature has not yet been rolled out to the public, so I will need to manually send funds from my recipient address to Sandy Hook Promise’s address.

I encourage you to hold me accountable for completing those transfers. The short video below shows the steps you can take to confirm Sandy Hook Promise’s address through the Giveth platform. You will need to be connected to Giveth using Tally Ho, MetaMask, or another browser-based Ethereum wallet. Please keep in mind, though, that unlike most NFTs minted in the past year, Mirror’s writing NFTs are deployed on Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2 network. This means that transaction costs will be much lower — typically ranging from $0.50 to $2.00 — than on the main Ethereum network. But it also means you must use the Optimistic Ethereum Explorer, not the main Etherscan explorer, to make sure the funds reach the correct address.

Please feel free to share the UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING meme below as far and wide as you wish. As much as it’s important to support the survivors of this massacre, the emergency responders, and the wider community, we must not ignore the politics of complicity. Elected leaders must not be permitted to weep for the dead and maimed while championing the policies that enable the violence yet to come.

I’m a physician assistant by training and former newspaper journalist who tumbled down the web3 rabbit hole in 2016 after falling in love with the idea of decentralizing power structures and improving human coordination at scale to tackle thorny problems. I’m interested in forming meaningful connections with values-aligned individuals. I’m also eager to build up my technical know-how so I can better contribute to the web3 projects that interest me and pursue some ideas of my own. I curate several web3-related lists on Twitter. You can also find me on Lenster, a decentralized, permissionless social media app built with Lens Protocol.

🖖

Another school shooting in America, this time in the small town of Uvalde, Texas. Our national motto for the slaughter of school children seems still to be: “Never again, until the next time.”

If only there had been some meaningful forewarning of the shooter’s capacity for violence — like a pattern of behavior consistent with antisocial personality disorder and the purchase of two AR-15 style weapons just days after his 18th birthday.

It is commendable that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, as seen in the news conference below, highlights the need for better access to mental health resources. At the same time, it’s utterly deplorable — though very much on brand for the Republican governor — that he makes no mention of access to firearms. In Abbott’s calculus, an assault rifle doesn’t kill children; a person with mental illness kills children.

All proceeds from the sale of the NFT representing this Mirror post will go to Sandy Hook Promise, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to end school shootings and create a culture change that prevents violence and other harmful acts that hurt children.

I had hoped to use a new feature teased by Mirror that would let me change the address of the funds recipient, so I could funnel contributions directly to Sandy Hook Promise. Unfortunately, that feature has not yet been rolled out to the public, so I will need to manually send funds from my recipient address to Sandy Hook Promise’s address.

I encourage you to hold me accountable for completing those transfers. The short video below shows the steps you can take to confirm Sandy Hook Promise’s address through the Giveth platform. You will need to be connected to Giveth using Tally Ho, MetaMask, or another browser-based Ethereum wallet. Please keep in mind, though, that unlike most NFTs minted in the past year, Mirror’s writing NFTs are deployed on Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2 network. This means that transaction costs will be much lower — typically ranging from $0.50 to $2.00 — than on the main Ethereum network. But it also means you must use the Optimistic Ethereum Explorer, not the main Etherscan explorer, to make sure the funds reach the correct address.

Please feel free to share the UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING meme below as far and wide as you wish. As much as it’s important to support the survivors of this massacre, the emergency responders, and the wider community, we must not ignore the politics of complicity. Elected leaders must not be permitted to weep for the dead and maimed while championing the policies that enable the violence yet to come.

I’m a physician assistant by training and former newspaper journalist who tumbled down the web3 rabbit hole in 2016 after falling in love with the idea of decentralizing power structures and improving human coordination at scale to tackle thorny problems. I’m interested in forming meaningful connections with values-aligned individuals. I’m also eager to build up my technical know-how so I can better contribute to the web3 projects that interest me and pursue some ideas of my own. I curate several web3-related lists on Twitter. You can also find me on Lenster, a decentralized, permissionless social media app built with Lens Protocol.

🖖