I had every intent to write a long, thoughtful essay on the quagmire that is the gun control debate in the United States.\u00a0 I have researched Constitutional Law and gun laws in other countries.\u00a0 I’ve Googled countless Facebook memes to determine the truth (or lack thereof) behind them.\u00a0 \u00a0I have spent more time researching this than probably any other topic I’ve wanted to write about.<\/p>\n
But then it just hit me like a load of bricks.\u00a0 What’s the point?\u00a0 It’s abundantly clear nothing is ever going to change.\u00a0 Guns set off strong emotions in everyone, even more so than other “hot button” issues like abortion.\u00a0 Everyone loses their damn minds over this.\u00a0 The folks on the left will blame the right.\u00a0 The folks on the right will blame the left.\u00a0 The folks in the middle are caught in the crossfire- figuratively AND literally sometimes.<\/p>\n
And then we all move on.\u00a0 We get caught up in the next Trump scandal or the next special election or the next season of The Voice.\u00a0 Families are left without answers to the simple question “Why did my child die?”.<\/p>\n
And then it happens again.\u00a0 Maybe at a school.\u00a0 Maybe a mall.\u00a0 Maybe a concert.\u00a0 Maybe a movie theater.\u00a0 Another shooter.\u00a0 Another list of dead kids.\u00a0 Another round of meaningless speeches by politicians.\u00a0 Another round of Facebook memes.\u00a0 Another set of families in mourning.<\/p>\n
And yet again, nothing happens.<\/p>\n
It’s just too depressing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had every intent to write a long, thoughtful essay on the quagmire that is the gun control debate in the United States.\u00a0 I have researched Constitutional Law and gun laws in other countries.\u00a0 I’ve Googled countless Facebook memes to determine the truth (or lack thereof) behind them.\u00a0 \u00a0I have spent more time researching this than probably any other topic… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issues","category-things-that-make-you-go-huh"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/XB78WQK09O.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}