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Gun Violence - The Club of Tears

The Victims of Gun Violence

By Susan PaytonPublished 10 months ago • Updated 10 months ago • 3 min read
Top Story - December 2025
Photo By Susan Payton (c) 2025

There are victims of gun violence every single day around the world and in the United States. Each death touches many lives, and it does not just claim the life of one person, it claims the lives of everyone that loves them.

My Son Was A Victim of a Brutal Murder in 2015

I had began to realize that as time passed, my heart still continued to bleed, as others went on with their lives. I noticed others began to feel that our sorrow began to bring them down. It made me wonder if I was the only one that remained in this sadness.

Then I heard a TV broadcast, and it was a group of parents who had lost their children to gun violence. This broadcast was right after the Florida School shooting. A man who lost his daughter in that shooting said, "I can only visit my child in a cemetery, and no one can bring her back to me". A woman who lost her son in the Orlando club shooting said, "I lost my only son in that shooting, my only child, What is anyone going to do for me"? They all felt they lost their future, and a large part of their life.

Their tears and raw emotion were heart wrenching. I can remember listening to the news of the shootings in Las Vegas, and hearing that at least two 44 year old men were shot and killed. The same age as my son Rick, when he was brutally murdered. I literally shook, for I knew that at least two houses would suffer that same fate that I did, in March of 2015.

The faint knock on their door that would stop the clock of life. The knock that would change your life forever. The day that life ceased to have the same meaning. The day that the sky no longer would have the same beautiful shade of blue it once had. The day the bodies of water, that once seemed to flow with beauty, now took on a murkiness, that would forever remain.

We Were Not Alone

I always tell parents now that have lost a child, "They Are Not Alone", because at that moment, while I watched that broadcast, I knew that I was not alone, although some people made me feel like I was.

I knew that all were a part of a very large club of parents, all over the world that have lost their children, an intrigal part of their lives to gun violence. No matter what the circumstance, I knew somehow our tears all looked the same, and all of our lives changed in an awful moment of violence.

A Plea of All Parents Who Lost Their Children To Gun Violence

One man on the broadcast said, led by his tears, "Please someone do something, stop the blood shed, stop the violence".

Stop The Blood Shed

I think that sentiment it echoed by each and everyone of us in "The Club Of Tears".

Starling Statistics

As of December 24, 2025, there have been 394 mass shootings in the United States in 2025.

The Gun Violence Archive which defines mass shooting as an incident, in which four or more people are injured or killed (not including the shooter), reports 394 incidents this year alone.

The number of mass killings (incidents with four or more deaths, not including the perpetrator is significantly lower and has reportedly dropped to a two-decade low, with around 17 recorded so far in 2025.

In the State of Delaware, in which I live in, a Delaware State Trooper was just shot yesterday, for a no apparent reason at the Department of Motor Vehicles in New Castle Delaware. The Trooper was sitting at a reception desk, fullfilling an over time assignment, when a man walked up to him and shot him. After the Trooper was shot, he pushed an employee of the DMV, out of the way, and the gunman shot him again.

The Delaware State Trooper succumbed to his wounds, and reading about what happened yesterday in Delaware, reminded me of the broadcast I saw, and what trouble the world is in.

Violence!!!

Please Stop The Violence!!!!

humanity

About the Creator

Susan Payton

I love to write in every venue. I am 76 years old and try to make every day count,. I am learning a great deal about poetry.

You can find me at medium.com/susan-payton

Or on my publication-medium.com/simple-gardening

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    Written by Susan Payton