41 shots fired in 30 seconds. The shooter is killed in the 31st, but nine other people lay dead, too,  and 26 others are injured. Why any civilian needs a .223-caliber high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines I cannot even begin to fathom. Why? This, after less than 13 hours earlier when another mass murder of 22 people was committed by a hate-fueled, white-supremacist using AK-47 or similar. High-capacity magazines were used in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas, and Parkland, Florida. Why does any American need to own these weapons?

I sit watching the news with tears streaming down my face and a sick feeling in the base of my throat and in my soul, grieved, yet once again by the violence, the carnage, the families torn apart and their pain and anguish.  I also feel sickened as I read the vicious comments made by staunch assault-type weapon defenders on news stories and friends’ posts, and I long to ask them why their “right” to own a weapon designed for the sole purpose of savagely murdering as many human beings as possible in a short amount of time is as important as the rights of Americans to go to Walmart, to a bar, a festival, a concert, a house of worship, a high school, a night club, the first grade?

There is simply no reasoning with the logic of “more armed people will stop the violence.” Or “guns don’t kill, people do.” Or “knives, cars, bombs, etc. kill too; should we ban them too?” Or it’s a “mental health issue” (unless the mass murder is perpetrated by Muslims, of course then it’s “terrorism.”) Well isn’t mass murder committed by a hate-filled racist white young male bearing a weapon that fires 80-100 rounds a minute, terrorism?  How many more people have to die before we pass universal background checks, before the assault weapon ban is reinstated and before high capacity magazines are no longer sold?

And I just have to ask, how terrible, really, would your life be if you didn’t own something that can be used to mow down innocent human beings who are just going to Walmart, to a bar, a festival, a concert, a house of worship, a high school, a night club, the first grade? Because the 31 people who were savagely and brutally mass murdered this past weekend, some while begging for their lives and all with families who loved them and want them back, are not just statistics in someone else’s city.
They are us.

#EnoughisEnough #NotOneMore