I have to ask myself again and again, "What is this fascination with guns and violence?"
The media regularly ignore the daily death toll from guns - last I read it was something over 80 a day. That is, until it's some large chunk of that total all in one place & at one time. Then it is "missing white girls" over all the channels all the time.
What is this?
It is death, and it is maiming, and loss of futures, and hopes, for not only the dead but the remaining living that were impacted. That is not worth a media story unless that total rises to the level of an entire small town like Columbine, Aurora, Newtown or the next.
Chicago, L.A. and others are ignored as the dead-to-population ratio is not high enough to rate coverage. It seems that it doesn't even rate more than a couple of lines in the back of the local paper any more.
I find myself wondering "Why?"
At what point will "We, the People" take up the responsibilities to create that more perfect union and guarantee the rights written of? Oh right. That "R" word, Responsibility, was mentioned. It's ever so much easier to assign that task to someone else, ANYONE else just so we don't have to think or do anything about the issue PERSONALLY.
Want to change things? Put down the mouse. Step back from the keyboard. Get involved in local politics. You want some changes made? Who is going to go to your local government and bitch at them until they actually do something that will help? The lobbyists are paid quite well to fill the government's ears with the information that their clients want there. If you want to get YOUR information into the discussion, then SHOW UP and tell them yourself. Attend public hearings, council meetings, & other opportunities to meet and greet your local, state and national officeholders or CANDIDATES for office.
Join together with others of like mind [i.e. here] and network together to get some local and/or national issues to a resolution that actually agrees with your views. Be ready to give them either money, your time, or both. It takes serious time and resources to get our point across to a wider electorate but we know that it CAN be done. Let's see how big a bite out of the "safe" Republican't gerrymandered districts we can take in 2014.
We start NOW - if YOU want it, work for it.
See you at the Netroots Nation meetup.