Beginning National Gun Violence Awareness Month

Gun Violence Awareness Month: June

Today begins National Gun Violence Awareness Month and thank goodness. All across America, along with here in Kansas City, more locally, we need to be aware of and pay attention to gun violence and the shootings and killings. We need to be aware of it, certainly, but more importantly, we need to do something about it. We shouldn't normalize this. We shouldn't just say or think this is the way it is and the way it must be. No other educated, industrialized nation in the world lives like this. We shouldn't, either.

We need to see, need to know the statistics about guns and shootings and the violence in America and then we need to say "Enough!" and work to put an end to it. Here are just a few local headlines on it all.

Shooting spree shakes up 

South Kansas City neighborhood

4 children inside KC house hit by gunfire from drive-by shooter

Police investigate shooting 

at Austins Bar and Grill

KCMO drive-by shooting caught 

on personal dashcam

And the shootings and killings are all up in America, across the nation.

Shootings, homicides in Chicago 

both higher than start of violent 2016

Chicago's murder rate soars 72% in 2016; 

shootings up more than 88%

Chicago murders up in January 2017 

compared to last year

Denver's homicides hit 

a 10-year high in 2016 

Violent crime in L.A. jumps for third straight year

Mother of 3-year-old, killed in crossfire, was the ‘backbone’ of close-knit family

4-year-old boy killed in rolling Kansas City gun battle

MetroLink passengers take cover as bullets hit train in St. Clair County

12-year-old boy shot in St. Louis, rushed to hospital

'It happened again,' father says after 2nd son murdered in New Orleans

Man shot at prayer vigil in St. Claude neighborhood: New Orleans police

Recess guarded by cops after killing outside school: 'They should be able to play'

Two juveniles, ages 12 and 13, arrested 

in connection to fatal shooting

Boy, 6, found shot dead in stolen car 

on day of 1st grade graduation

Then, compare us to the rest of the world when it comes to guns and shootings and killings. It's insane.

U.S. Leads World in Mass Shootings

Compare These Gun Death Rates: 

The U.S. Is in a Different World

U.S. Has More Guns - And Gun Deaths - 

Than Any Other Country

Here's a stunner:

More Than 6 Million Americans 

Own Ten or More Guns

We have to recognize that this is no way to live. We have to recognize that America has far, far too many guns.

And what can be done? 

Like it or not, agree with it or not, Australia seemed to have led the way on this issue.

Strict gun laws ended mass shootings in Australia

Australia data shows gun controls a huge success 20 years after mass shooting

Don't get me wrong, here, either. I wish a gun/weapons ban could be passed here and that it would work but I think that ship has sailed, figuratively speaking. We have far too many weapons now in the country to make that work. We also seem to have a different, very different kind of "Wild West" mindset regarding guns no other nation has, sadly, unfortunately.

There are some good statistics on guns in America, however. Here's a big one, for me, anyway.

Fewer and Fewer Americans Own Guns

Just three percent of adults own 

half of America's guns

Fewer Americans Own Guns, 

But Those Who Do Own More Than Ever

Another:

Most Americans don't own a gun, 

and want more gun control

So what do we do? What can we do?

We have to do at least two things and those are, first, let our governmental representatives know we are against the NRA, the National Rifle Association and the weapons manufacturers having their way with our nation and our laws. We have to let them know that they can't sell all weapons, everywhere to everyone at all times. We don't need or want automatic weapons on our streets, made available to anyone and everyone that can buy them and we certainly also don't need or want armor-piercing bullets available on our streets. Neither has a place in a modern society.

Then, second, we must vote. We must vote for sanity in our gun laws. We have to vote for people who are not just blindly behind, again, the NRA and the weapons manufacturers. We can't be "all guns, all the time." That kind of thinking has gotten us more shootings and killings, per capita, than any other of the industrialized nations, far and away.