I cooked (beans and a ham hock), peeled peaches, sliced figs.
I sewed – three dresses in one weekend.
I went to church, read Ecclesiastes: “I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to see and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with.”
Meditation; thoughts and prayers; a search for understanding.
It isn’t the president* or 8chan or a culture of hate.
It isn’t domestic violence, or the breakdown of the family unit, or working parents and latchkey kids.
It isn’t a crisis of faith, a lack of mental health services, or the first grade teacher who didn’t spend enough time teaching kindness.
It isn’t the gays, the immigrants, the incels, or a political party.
Flip any of those things to its opposite, and you still won’t change the ending.
It’s the guns.
Control for every other variable – get rid of the internet and TV – and the story ends the same way, unless you take out the guns. It’s the only controllable variable that produces a different result.
And until we’re ready to confront that truth, we’re just wasting time.
Ready to do something? These are your people: Moms Demand Action / Everytown for Gun Safety
Need to read more first? Start here:
It’s the Guns (from 2018)
It’s the Guns. It’s Always Been the Guns. (from 2018)
One nation, under gun. (from 2012)
How to prevent gun deaths: Where experts and the public agree. (from 2017)
6 Things to Know About Mass Shootings in America (from 2016 – since updated)
Things More Heavily Regulated than Buying a Gun in America (from 2017)
jenny's lark 
It’s some of the other things, too. But, yeah.
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The other things are terrible. But swap the gun for a penknife (as Jeffrey Toobin put it, in 2012), and the end result changes. It’s the guns.
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What’s your plan? I’ll do it.
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Give time, money and voice to Moms Demand Action. And keep saying “it’s the guns” until all of the excuses fall to the side.
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Good. A loose group of us are forming on Twitter to do that and more.
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I agree…and also with Michelle…and “some of the other things too”
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Consider this: There will always be people who want to harm themselves or others – tale as old as time.
If you fix all of those “other things” but leave gun access as it is (too easy to get one, in the U.S.), then you still have mass shootings and veterans committing suicide and kids shooting friends by accident.
If you fix none of those other things, but you restrict access to guns – require fingerprint trigger locks and background checks, implement waiting periods, ban assault-style rifles, limit sales to licensed dealers (instead of gun shows), and all of the other reforms being advocated by Moms Demand Action – then you actually change outcomes.
It’s the guns.
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[…] It’s the guns. It’s the fucking […]
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Speaking as someone who’s struggled with my mental health in the past, our mental health care system is not what it should be in this country. But it’s still the guns, ultimately.
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On the issue of gun violence, it’s the guns. And, more broadly, we also need to do better on other fronts, with access to care – including mental health care – at the top of that list. So much to do, and such complex issues.
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I respectfully disagree. By and far, there are and always have been, people intent on evil. They use all manner of weapons to accomplish their goal. Consider the recent stabbing of 6 people, four of whom died. A person who wants a gun for hunting, skeet shooting, and so on will go through the process to legally obtain a weapon. Whether the current process is in need of an update is not the issue. A person who wants a weapon for an evil purpose is going to find a way to obtain a weapon and it’s rarely done through legal means. Even a person who uses a weapon belonging to another (parent) the person has in fact stolen the weapon/doesn’t have consent. My weapon has never been shot unless I pull the trigger. In and of itself it is an inanimate tool requiring an operator to do use it. It (the gun) does not get any choice in the matter. Guns Don’t Kill people… People Kill People!!! It’s Not the Guns!!
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We will simply disagree on this point.
Perhaps you would consider the ground in between our two positions: liberal gun policies in the U.S. make it too easy for someone with ill intent to acquire a weapon.
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It is not the Guns. It is the heart of man/woman. Guns like all tools can be used for good or evil. If you are looking at numbers killed, we should ban automobiles. MANY more deaths per year. Many.
The 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights, is there to provide the citizens of the United States with the ability to defend themselves from a tyrannical government. Actually the 2nd Amendment guarantees all of the rest… the 1st, the 4th etc. for without it, we end up like Venezuela, or Germany in the 30s. Since Venezuela is current … you should read about the violence perpetrated against Maduro’s POLITICAL opponents… and about the Pro Maduro gangs that are armed…the populace has been disarmed first through “common sense gun control/regulation” and then confiscation.
So no ma’am… it is NOT about guns, but about control.. and about the evil in people’s hearts and minds.
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