Dear America,

We need to spend a lot more time looking at what creates a human being motivated to massacre their fellow human beings and a lot less time pretending we can make the tools they use disappear from reality.

There are more firearms than people in the US. That will never not be the case. You can build a rifle in your garage from scrap with $100 and an internet connection. You can rent a truck and mow down more people than you could with a rifle.

Accept reality and focus on what can actually help address this epidemic.

THE TOOLS AREN’T THE PROBLEM.

THE DAMAGED HUMAN BEINGS ARE THE PROBLEM.

I’m sorry America, but our usual standard operating procedure of wanting to spend zero time and effort understanding the root causes of a problem and wanting your mommy and daddy government to “pass a law” to fix it isn’t going to cut it here.

Stop abusing your kids.

Stop tearing each other apart.

Stop acting like 911 is going to save you.

Take a mass casualty medical training class.

Learn how to defend yourself and those you love against an active shooter or other attacker.

Stop supporting the bloodthirsty, ratings-hungry media that makes these broken murdering souls famous.

Or we can continue shoving our heads in the sand and keep pretending that passing laws that only the non-murderers give two shits about is going to change anything.

The choice is ours.

Piper Smith is the founder and director of Armed Equality. Armed Equality was founded in response to the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the deadliest terrorist attack and hate crime on American soil post 9/11.

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