I will never not be angry

I wonder: how many people who would rather see people murdered than vote for any kind of gun regulation at all, ever, are also "pro-life."

Probably most of them. What garbage that all is. (Like, guns are a right, but it's a privilege to access healthcare and services and help, yeah?)

And I wonder how many folks who "don't want to make it about guns" every time we have a mass shooting (Every. Time. We. Have. A. Mass. Shooting.) are also the same folks who wonder why everything "always has to be about race."

What a mess we are.

We don't need prayers. We need gun control. Have a nice day.

Someone I'm no longer friends with was angry with me after Sandy Hook for daring to bring up America's gun problem because it "wasn't the time" to talk about guns. She was "annoyed" that I was "making it all about guns."

She actually used the word annoyed.

But I see that a lot after every mass shooting. (God. "After every mass shooting." That's a thing. That's a thing we say.) I've been reading back through my blog and trying to count all the times I wrote, or tried to write, after a shooting. I should probably just add some sort of "another fucking mass shooting" tag, but all the entries sound the same. It's not changing or getting better and I'm totally, utterly hopeless that it ever will, because we allowed twenty children to be murdered in their classroom and still didn't change anything. My own children could be next. My husband. My students. Me. Anyone I love who ever leaves the damn house. So hey, folks who think it's "not the right time," can you please quick get it on the schedule sometime before the NEXT mass shooting? If we keep with this timeline, you have a few minutes, but not much more than that.

And if you don't think we should be talking about gun control, if you elevate your right to own guns over the right of folks to go to school or church or work or a concert or the public library or the park without someone shooting you, well, you know what you can do with your useless "thoughts and prayers."

I want a different America

I want to live in an America that loves its people as much as it loves its guns.

I want to live in an America that doesn't worship at the altar of guns.

I want to live in an America that doesn't just shrug and say, "Meh, what are you gonna do," after every mass shooting.

I want to live in an America where I don't just expect mass shootings.

I want to live in an America that doesn't just accept mass shootings.

I want to live in an America that cannot contain the phrase "after every mass shooting."

I want to live in an America where the guy on the radio can't begin a sentence with "Every time we see a mass shooting..."

I want to live in an America where churches, schools, concerts, clubs, coffee shops, offices, and workplaces are not targets for gun violence.

I want to live in an America in which elementary school children don't have to fucking practice active shooter lock-downs.

I want to live in an America where a man doesn't say to me, "Maybe if teachers aren't willing to arm themselves, they're not cut out to be teachers." (I want to live in an America where the idea of a teacher with a gun in a room filled with children sounds as insane as it is.)

I want to live in an America where my reality doesn't include a plan about what to do if a man with a gun comes for my classroom.

I want to live in an America where I don't say to my husband, "Of course it's my body between the gun and the kids. We protect kids first. That's our job."

I want to live in an America where I don't have to expect that the people who teach my children would also take a bullet for them.

I want to live in an America where the sight of a lone white man in a theater doesn't make me nearly stop breathing.

I want to live in an America that will call a white man a terrorist when he is a terrorist. I want an America where a terrorist's whiteness won't serve him with the label of a mentally ill lone wolf. I want to live in an America that doesn't push guns into his hands.

I want to live in an America that wakes up out of its complacency.

I want to live in an America that offers more than "thoughts and prayers."