It’s. The. Guns.

This post appeared this morning on the website Democratic Underground. It’s the work of a brilliant writer named TygrBright. I edited it just slightly for context, but the rest of it cannot be improved. It’s perfect.

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It’s. The. Guns.

Yes, it’s also a hate-filled culture in which homophobia is on the top ten list, certainly.

But no matter who that asshole hated, or how much, or why, it was THE GODDAMNED GUNS that allowed him to kill so many, so quickly, so horribly.

Please, do not use this thread to post all the arguments about how if the right person had had the right caliber weapon in the right place at the right time, this wouldn’t-a got so far and that’s why everybody should be packin’. Just… DON’T.

This OP is about THE FUCKING GUNS.

Or, as I shall call them henceforth, the DEATHTOOLS.

They are tools. Their purpose is to kill.

Deathtools.

What more will it take to convince lawmakers, and the deathtool oligarchs and NRA shills who terrorize them into collaboration, that a community cannot live in freedom from fear when every pathetically inadequate, criminally irresponsible asshole can get their hands on unlimited deathtools?

Can carry them anywhere, can make them shields against their own fear and inadequacy, and can use them with the willing collaboration of a ghoulish, profit-obsessed media and a violence-fueled network of subcultures that simply adore popular entertainment full of blood and explosions and revenge and ‘go ahead, make-my-day’ machismo?

WHAT MORE WILL IT TAKE?!

Answer me, dammit, you pusillanimous, greed-soaked tools, and the fearful, whiney, inadequate voters who keep electing you!

WHAT?!