My daughter has a check-up today. The pediatrician’s office is a short walk up a hill from Borderline Bar & Grill, where a dozen people were murdered last night. Pretty close to home.

How does a society fail to vaccinate against the disease of gun violence? How do people continue to allow themselves to be manipulated into fearing and hating brown people, when the most horrific violence is being done by white US citizens on home soil? Not that brown fear and hate should be replaced with white fear and hate, but you don’t treat a viral infection with antibiotics. 

How do we allow anyone prescribed a psychotropic med to own a firearm? How do we allow one person to accumulate an arsenal of weapons? Of course it only takes one gun to kill a room full of people, but owning an arsenal is an encouragement and a red flag.

How do we allow people who have been on psychiatric lock down to own a firearm, or people arrested for domestic violence, or people who’ve been caught drinking and driving, or people with an outstanding restraining order? 

Owning a firearm is a legal right that we are unlikely to rid our society of, but at least we can imbue our laws and even our culture with the grave responsibilities that go along with guns. We cannot continue to let toddlers play with razor blades in the name of freedom.