A day after the tragic and evil mass shooting at a high school in Uvalde, Texas, the father of a victim in the equally awful 2018 Parkland high school massacre is saying that Uvalde was “preventable.”

We have $40B to send to Ukraine to protect their borders, but we can’t protect our children in our country. What are our children worth?

Politicians on both sides voted to send that money to Ukraine, I don’t want to hear that we don’t have a budget to secure our schools. #FixIt pic.twitter.com/Tc47afV0ng

— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) May 25, 2022

“We have $40B to send to Ukraine to protect their borders, but we can’t protect our children in our country. What are our children worth?” he asks on Twitter. “Politicians on both sides voted to send that money to Ukraine, I don’t want to hear that we don’t have a budget to secure our schools. #FixIt.”

The shooting at the Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was eerily similar to Tuesday’s Uvalde atrocity: In both cases, troubled young men who had previously displayed signs of mental illness marched into local schools and began indiscriminately shooting people. The events are so awful that it’s almost impossible to come to terms with the depravity that humans can be capable of.

Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland victim Meadow Pollack and author of the tweet above, appeared on Fox and Friends Wednesday to advocate for improving safety measures at schools around the nation:

There’s no reason why we could give 40 billion away to Ukraine, and we can’t protect our children in this country. They (parents) need to go to their local school districts, get involved, see who’s on their school boards, and see if they’re taking school safety seriously.

He continued, telling host Ainsley Earhardt:

Get involved with your communities, get involved with your local school board, and stay busy. Stay with your family. You’ve got to stay strong for the rest of your family, your kids. And that’s all I can tell them. I’m not going to be able to say to them what’s going to make them feel better, because there’s nothing I can do to make them feel better.

The Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, where Tuesday’s tragedy occurred, did have a number of security measures in place, but unfortunately, they were not enough to stop the madman. Pollack does provide specifics for what he thinks is needed, saying that all schools should have a resource officer, a single point of entry, perimeter fencing, and trained teachers.

While there is sure to be plenty of debate in the weeks ahead over gun control, mental illness, school safety, and more, there’s one thing that should never be forgotten: the victims and their families. It’s impossible not to hurt deep inside when Pollack describes the pain of losing his beloved daughter:

I get a wave of emotion every time I think of my princess Meadow, it just comes over you. And it’s very overwhelming constantly to feel it. But I do things like now. I try and talk to parents and tell them to get involved and try and make a difference.

God bless.