The time to start talking about dealing with gun violence is ...?

Now.


People say "Let's not exploit this tragedy. Let's mourn and, in due time, then we can address issues. Just not right now."

No,

No.

No.

Hell no.

It's wrong.

It's cowardly.

It dishonors the memory of every person murdered.  When these atrocities happen every few weeks, what do we wait for?  When does "in due time" come about when the killing time comes around again, even before the healing time is done? When is this mythical tragedy-free time when the next attack comes in a few days or at most a few weeks?

What you're effectively saying is "Let's wait until all of these frequent, senseless, brutal, un-Christian/un-Jewish/un-Muslim/un-Buddhist/un-etc./inhuman killings stop of their own accord before we sit down and talk about how it is we can bring them to end.  Let's pretend they're out of our control because we lack the courage to do or say something about them. Let's offer our 'thoughts & prayers' while we sit on our asses."  If they were being bombed to death by foreigners, would people be saying "Now, now, we need to focus strictly on the victims. Let's not do anything just yet." Obviously not.

Thoughts and prayers are nice & pretty, but they don't accomplish anything besides brief, mild, warm internal fuzzies.  In other words, they accomplish not a thing. More graphically, they accomplish fuck all. 

Offering thoughts and prayers when the butchery happens over and over and over again is the moral equivalent of handing a drowning victim a Hallmark card and hearty good wishes.

I have a couple of guns.  I kind of like them.  I take care of them and I use them responsibly.  I keep them safely managed.  The moment I think they pose an active threat to others, whether through exposure, mis-management, instability, etc., they will go away.  I don't fetish-ize them.  I don't pretend they actively protect me against the .01% likelihood of personal violence or home invasion. 

I definitely don't pretend that two handguns will protect me from some rogue government that might spring up and attack me with tanks, mortars, drones, bunkerbusters, and the like.  I also don't think they're any kind of stopgap against dealing with personal feelings of xenophobia, paranoia and insecurity.

I don't think 0 guns in the country is a solution, but I also think that 300,000,000 guns in the country is a tragedy and travesty on a magnitude of many powers of ten.


We are awash in blood, worshiping at an altar of fear, praying to a God of paranoia.  That doesn't make us Abraham or Isaac. It makes us fools. It also makes us all complicit in 30,000 US gun deaths each and every year.