A very unplanned post today – but the subject matter as a father of kiddos – this haunts me

Walking through the Browning Museum in Ogden on Saturday, I felt the old muscle memory kick in. I grew up weapons‑aware, trained to understand what force actually does to a body. I pointed out a few pieces to my girls—told them plainly that if one of those rounds ever found me, I’d simply vanish. Their faces shifted. Fortnite had given them cartoon physics; the museum gave them the real thing. A few of the 250‑year celebration attendees nearby didn’t quite know what to do with that moment – A father teaching his kids openly about topics so simlar to what Charlize is sharing in this video clip.

But the craftsmanship pulled me in—the way these tools were born out of cold, primitive conditions and still engineered with precision. It echoed the feeling I had walking the cemeteries around the D‑Day beaches, the American cemetery especially. That same quiet discipline, the reverence you only earn by living long enough to understand the stakes, settled on me again.

And then, in the way life refuses to stay in one register, we went to see the Big Boy train.

I want to believe we get better. But Friday marked twenty years since Columbine, and that anniversary sits in the room whether anyone names it or not. The weight is always there for the people who lived it, lost someone, or carry the trauma forward. Desmond Tutu’s line keeps circling back: the mouse still feels the weight of the neutral elephant.

I’m grateful I was taught to hold weaponry with gravity, not bravado. That discipline shaped me, and I carry it my own way.

Hearing Charlize share her story from her youth in South Africa surprised me—but after Shreveport, I’m grateful for the honesty. It’s another reminder that the world leaves marks on all of us, and some people speak about it only when they’re finally ready.