Stop Shooting When You're the Last One Standing

A few months ago, in the shadow of the Trayvon Martin shooting, I wrote about how I felt angry at my powerlessness. As the mother of a brown boy, who will grow into a brown-skinned man, I have little ability to protect him from those who will see him as a threat solely based on his gender and skin color.

Now, after the latest tragic incident of gun-related violence in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, I feel somewhat relieved.

Certainly black men are still targets, but really, of course, it's anyone.  This senseless, ruthless attack reminded me that anyone can go out to see a movie or to go get a drink and some Skittles, and experience their last moments on Earth.

Not because of an act of God, like being struck by lightening, but because some lunatic decided, actually planned, to make himself a movie character, take up firearms and go on a killing spree that very day.

As a human being, but especially as a mother, I am furious and sick to my stomach.  I pray for the victims and their families.  I cannot imagine the horror they are feeling.  How many more people have to die from gun-related violence?  How much longer does the NRA have to have the rest of us under their (cowboy) boots?  How many more mass shootings do there have to be before we get some effective gun control laws -- before more Washington politicians stand up the gun lobby and their minions?

Some idiots - Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)- have said that if more people in the theater had been armed they could have shot the attacker.  He draws a connection between the Colorado shootings -- this massacre-- and the attack on Judeo-Christian values. 

Of course!  We also know that hippie, socialist, gay-marriage advocatin', we-are-the-99%ers, abortion-lovin', anti-racist, environmentalist, health-care wantin' folks are evil haters of humankind.  Why, every one of these folks would blow a hungry and homeless person into chopped chuck for looking at their kale/wheatgrass smoothie the wrong way!

We also all know that killing is a cornerstone of Christian doctrine.  If only they could have, our Savior and his followers would have defended themselves with their firearms of choice!

Maybe Rep. Gohmert from the Great State of Texas, the state that gave me my husband (it has its plusses), is right, however.  There should be an endgame.

Let's all carry. Let's all shoot to defend ourselves, regardless of how sure we are of the level of threat.  Then if one person was wrong, someone can shoot him, and so on and so on. That way the Last One can stand victorious, knowing he was the true defender of humanity.