Excerpt re-blogged today: …jilldennison.com

At least 150 people fatally shot in more than 400 shootings over the Fourth of July weekend – CNN…

Yes, I know I’m spitting in the wind, preaching to the choir, and the gun nuts will go on being just that … NUTS.  But I cannot be silent on this issue!  This is one of the three biggest issues that is threatening to destroy this nation from within, the other two being racism and money in politics.  And yes, I know that I’ve already said all of this before, more than a few times.  But PEOPLE!!!  WAKE UP AND SMELL THE GUNPOWDER!!!  It’s right outside your door!  Two of the fatalities this past weekend happened within a few miles of my home, likely a couple happened near you, too.  Our children are not safe in their classrooms, and we are not safe even in our workplaces.  How can the gun nuts even begin to justify this?  More to the point, how can our elected officials, men and women who are supposed to have our best interests at heart, justify taking bribes from the NRA and refusing to even discuss laws that might save lives?  Does anybody have an answer?  Hell no, for there is no logical answer.  It’s all about profit … profit for the gun industry, corporations such as Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta, Remington et al, and profit (money + power) for our not-so-illustrious elected officials whose salaries, I might remind you once again, WE PAY!

The right of a person to own a gun is about as far down on the priority list in my mind as anything could ever be.  And yet, it is the defining ‘right’ of far too many fools in this country.  The next holiday weekend will be the three-day Labour Day weekend, September 4^th thru 6^th.  Anybody want to make any bets how many of us will end up dead by guns at the end of that one? (Jill Dennison: Filosofa’s Word)

Jill echoes my feelings, but I can’t afford to let myself get riled up about it (health concerns, so I’m selfish in that way.) The main sad-not-mad regret is that so many really good old boy hunters identify guns with their roots, and have come to fear invasion by imagined fellow Americans. What the world needs now is love, sweet love…and common sense, and the ability to see the reasonable life-affirming choice involved. If cave men had possessed guns we probably wouldn’t exist. The quality of life for our children is up for grabs, and grabs, and grabs…