Dear President Obama and (seemingly) most elected Democrats,
Once again there has been a horrible mass shooting brought about by completely insane gun control laws... or lack thereof, more specifically. Once again, we are hearing the same old "There will be time to talk about this later, after the mourning".
But you all know as well as I do that we'll never talk about it. We'll never talk about it in large part because you're all terrified of what will happen electorally. It's fine. We get it. The NRA is big and scary and has guns, too. Not cool.
However, I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't be afraid of them. I would tell you there's no reason to be afraid because, like all things rightwing, the gun lobby is nothing more than a paper tiger.
I would tel you that there's no reason to be afraid because the NRA and similar coalitions no exist primarily to ensure the sales of guns and ammunition, more so than to protect the "rights" of gun owners... and you have a moral imperative to stop that.
I would tell you about how countries with even reasonable, furthermore strict, gun control laws have far, FAR less shooting deaths.
But you surely know all that already.
So what I would tell you that you probably don't really know is that... you don't have to be afraid. We have your back.
Who is "we"? "We" are the ones who just got President Obama and the Democrats re-elected by landslide margins in this country. In a year when the odds were stacked HIGH against us.
"We" are the ones who made it OK for you to talk about income inequality on the campaign trail. That issue more than any other is what paved the way for those electoral victories.
"We" are the ones who have managed to nearly cripple the almighty Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the right wing hate radio industry... and we used nothing but email and social networking to do it, largely.
"We" are the ones who, though there's still legislative work to do on this front, made it acceptable to the majority of the country for same sex couples to get married. And we did it in less than a decade after the 2004 elections, when conservatives made gay marriage the most terrible issue of our time. Not many people thought we'd see same sex couples being married for at least another 15-20 years.
"We" have done some amazing things once thought to be nearly impossible, politically.
And now "we" want sensible gun control and regulation. Where that line ends is up for debate in the years ahead, but the first steps aren't...
• Re-instate the assault weapons ban.
• Ban high capacity magazines.
• Keep military-grade weapons designed ONLY to kill scores of people OUT of civilian hands.
So President Obama. The Democratic party... if you take up the position of enacting sensible gun regulations, I promise you "we" will have your back. I'm willing to bet we can do it before the 2016 election comes around, too. You don't have to be afraid of the NRA and lunatic conservatives and Republicans. You have the most potent force in American politics behind you.
It's time to do the data-driven thing. The smart thing. The right thing.