Welcome to Colorado, the Shoot-’em-Up State

We do have a bloody history, don’t we? The latest breaking news happened the other day at the Table Mesa King Soopers in Boulder. At least three or four good friends live nearby and shop there regularly. And I used to shop there two or three times a week – I lived maybe a mile up the hill toward NCAR during grad school.

I’ve said a good bit about Columbine, and there’s also the Aurora theater massacre and the shooting at the Highlands Ranch STEM school (which is about 7.5 miles west of where I live now). Chuck E. Cheese. Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood. Arapahoe High School. Deer Creek Middle School. Thornton Walmart. Aurora Town Center Mall.

You probably haven’t heard about all of these, and there are a lot more.

Of course, it all started in Sand Creek. I don’t have much truck with superstition, but if there were a Native American curse we probably earned it.

And we’d be morons to think the 10 dead bodies at the King Soopers will be the last, wouldn’t we?

Here’s what I think.

I think there’s a large segment of Americans who are tired of walking around with a target on their backs.

I think we’d like to feel safe in the grocery store and the park and church and restaurant and city street and basically everywhere in public.

I think parents are tired of hearing about the day’s active shooter drills at the dinner table, and I’m certain they don’t like sending the kids off to school in the morning wondering if they’ll come home.

I think most of us understand that there’s an important difference between a musket and an AR-15.

I think when we hear the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” we notice that “life” comes first.

And I think a lot of us are sick to death of political leaders who report to arms dealers.

Unfortunately, we live in a country where you can control all three branches of government with 47% of the vote.

That’s what I think. What do you think?