Strong and United... to End Gun Violence.
Several of us were at or near the Super Bowl Parade shooting -- our store is just a few blocks away. But that makes us just a few of almost a million people that day. And with nine stores in modern America, this is just the most recent shooting we have been near -- heck, we've had shootings closer to our stores in the past.
This shooting wasn't planned, it had nothing to do with the event, it had nothing to do with self defense, it was instead just an argument between kids that led to guns being drawn and fired among hundreds of thousands of adults and children on a beautiful day in Kansas City.
As mayor Quinton Lucas said afterward: "That's what happens with guns."
Kids have guns. Psychopaths have guns. Domestic abusers have guns. Criminals have guns. There are more guns in America than people!
There are so many guns in America, and such light regulation, we make a country currently going through a decades-long civil war look like a bastion of firearms-control:
America's problem with mass shootings and gun violence is somewhat unique among developed nations, but it is hard to see how the sheer number of firearms in this country doesn't have something to do with the root cause.
What's worse: as we have made no meaningful attempt to track or regulate the mount of weapons in the country, our propensity for mass shoots has gotten worse.
We will regulate or change almost anything else besides access to firearms: we will change security at future Super Bowl parades, we will arm teachers, we will lock down schools, we will require see-through bags at events.
And with all those non-gun-regulations, shootings have increased in America.
No other gun-owning or gun-manufacturing nation behaves this way. The countries outside of America that supply the most weapons to us regulate firearms in some way:
In a lot of ways, the horse has left the barn. And now that horse is buying an AR-15 at an unregulated gun show!
Is one law going to prevent all mass shootings? No.
Are ten new laws going to suddenly change the environment overnight? No.
But while the horse is out, we need to make some attempt to reign it in.
Firearm-related-injury is now the leading cause of death among children in this country. More dangerous than cars or cancer:
Children are being killed accidentally or on purpose in their homes and in their neighborhoods. More frightening, they are being killed in their schools at an increasing rate. The 2010s were double the previous decade, and recent years have been almost triple that increased rate!
Calling for ending gun violence can feel like an exercise in futility, but there are elected officials, organizations, and citizens who continue to work to make this country safer for each other and our children.
We will continue to work with the Gabby Giffords PAC and Moms Demand Action. But we are also working with KC's Cereal for Breakfast and local elected officials to see if there is anything we can do to help -- be it financial or just moral support.
The "it is what it is" complacency has to stop at some point.
The state of things doesn't have to be this way. Thank you to all those who are working to make change.
RAYGUN's advocacy isn't everything.
A new law or two isn't everything.
But we have to start somewhere. We cannot let complacency win.
Because complacency with the current situation means that no one is safe. In America, everywhere you go, everywhere you have been, is a place where gun violence can strike:
