Can I Be Real A Second?

a plea to anyone who says "it's not the guns"

Can I be real a second? For just a millisecond? Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second? —George Washington in Hamilton

I love that line in ‘Right Hand Man’ - it’s so cleverly written and expertly delivered. It’s also the first thing I think when anyone asks “can I be real?”

So here I am, asking you, “can I be real a second?”

I’m tired. I’m sad. I’m angry. We are on day 128 of the year 2023 and we’ve had 199 mass shootings. I have ranted, shouted, and posted all I can about gun violence in the USA. I have marched and donated. I have prayed. I have spent my life working with other peoples’ children with the quiet mission to be a loving and supportive adult in their lives so that maybe, there would be one less gunman.

And yet here we are with more mass shootings than days in the year 2023.

Can we please, for once, have a conversation where you don’t assume I’m trying to take your guns away and I don’t assume you don’t care if my kids are next?

I believe you care.

I believe you have your reasons for wanting to own a gun.

Will you please believe that I have no delusions of the USA ever being gun free?

Or that the solutions I propose will solve all our problems?

Because I don’t and I know they won’t.

But we can’t keep having this same argument. So many people have died in their houses of worship. So many children have died in their schools. So many concert goers, movie goers, grocery shoppers, have died just living their lives.

I believe you care. Really, I do.

Will you please care enough to do something different this time? One conversation. One phone call. Something. Anything.

Anything other than the same old scripts that have gotten us nowhere for more than a decade. We can’t stay on opposite sides of this problem thinking the other person is wrong. We have to do something different.

I don’t want my kids to be next. I don’t want your kids to be either.

Please.

This is not hopeless, there are things we can try. We don’t have to live like this.

Please, let’s try.