We are number one. The United States has more gun deaths than all the other top 23 civilized nations in the world COMBINED. Our rate of gun deaths is three times that of Canada, where they also like their guns. Three times the rate.
Let me say this loudly, once again – we will NEVER solve this problem until our legislators act like parents and grandparents and stop acting like people scared of the NRA focused base. What is further troubling is most gun owners do not belong to the NRA and want change. Too bad. “It is a slippery slope” we hear from the NRA funded politicians. Well, burying your child is also a slippery slope into a rectangular hole.
Quite sadly, this is no longer news in America. It has become routine. Oh-hum, more people are shot in America. What shooting will come next week? How many more teens, young adults and college students will commit suicide due to access to guns (the number one gun death in the US)? How many more adults or kids will be shot, because a four or six year old found a loaded weapon? How many more people will be shot in an argument because someone had access to a gun? How many more people will be shot in a mass shooting because someone with a cause, a beef, or a fantasy got access to a gun?
Thoughts and prayers will not solve this problem. They have become a trite way for a legislator to say I am sorry your loved one is dead but watch me dribble the basketball to stall out the game clock until this week’s episode of gun death has subsided. In other words, the politician is saying “I won’t do anything, but you have my thoughts and prayers.” God must be tired of this lack of courage. He is probably thinking “I gave you a brain and a backbone – please act.” Or, another one of God’s children, some guy named Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”