Can y’all stop watching Fox News long enough to start paying attention to what is actually going on around you???
I don’t hate all guns and I’m not against the 2nd Amendment, but even you who watch Fox News like its your new Bible have to agree these shootings—that are now occurring every day in the US—are getting out of control and even the CDC is now reporting that gun deaths are surpassing cancer and car accidents as the leading cause of premature death in America.
I grew up in a family who loved guns, hunting, and target shooting. From 1970 to 1987, I lived out on a ranch with my parents. My family bought that ranch, built a cabin and two-story house, and all of us moved there in June of 1970.
None of my siblings, nor my dad and grandfather ever owned an automatic or semi-automatic assault weapon. They owned old school guns with six chambers.
Until Columbine happened, you could turn on the evening news and not be riddled with report after report of gun violence.
But now?
Aurora CO
Sandy Hook
Parkland Florida
Buffalo New York.
Uvalde TX
Monterey Park CA
Lansing Michigan
Nashville Tennessee
Louisville KY (2)
Dadeville Alabama
Akron Ohio
A 16 year old Black teenager, honor student and prized saxophone player Ralph Yarl gets shot in the head and arm after ringing the wrong doorbell when going to pick up his younger siblings from a playdate. He is expected to make a full recovery. But his recovery process will be long and hard, putting his dreams of a college education on hold.
The shooter, Andrew Lester, is an avowed racist MAGA Republican who alleges he shot Ralph Yarl in self defense….it is said that he blares Fox News all day long, and Lester’s grandson Klint Ludwig feels that it is Fox News’ 24-hour cycle of hate and fear conspiracies and lies, is what has stoked his grandfather’s already racist and bigoted views.
Andrew Lester had NO reason to shoot Ralph Yarl.
And …. read on. I’m almost done.
A 20 year old is shot and killed for driving down the wrong driveway in Upstate New York.
An 18 year old is in critical condition for getting into the wrong car by mistake.
A six year old girl and her father are both shot as they are playing basketball and said basketball rolls into a neighbors yard in North Carolina. The father is still hospitalized and his daughter was hit in her face, on her left cheek, was treated and released.
A basketball rolled into the wrong neighbor’s yard.
Today, what city, town, school, shopping mall, church, synagogue, mosque, dance hall, park, parade, movie theater, driveway, front lawn, or front door will be next?
Our nation is so super-sonically-armed to its teeth and civilians are now as free to buy and own military-grade assault weapons as they are to buy a candy bar, especially in many of the states that are Republican-controlled.
I don’t feel safe even going to hang out at the new Pismo Beach pier now, because a mass shooting could happen there.
I don’t feel safe at dialysis anymore.
When I go to sleep at night, I now get jolted awake by viscerally real dreams that yet another hate-filled angry someone is doing a drive by and I get shot right in the head as I am just relaxing down into a deep REM nighttime slumber.
Only it doesn’t kill me. I am instead left with no vision. I can no longer enjoy all the beautiful scenic photos of New York, New England, Cape Cod, Michigan, etc., on Facebook.
It is so hard for me to get to sleep now. To add to all of my personal stress, this dream is like a playlist put on endless repeat that I hate hearing….and it is happening to me every night now. Getting shot terrifies me.
What the hell are we doing? When will our Congress finally do something other than your empty AF ‘thoughts and prayers’?
Melissa Fields, Autist 