Fear rules our country.

When three Muslim residents engaged in two mass shootings, the reaction was to propose banning all Muslim entry to our country. When a deadly disease was killing people in Africa and one person died here, many wanted to ban entry to anyone from Africa.

In contrast, there’s currently a huge epidemic going on in our country and it’s been continuing unabated for many years. This scourge kills over 90 of our residents every single day by suicide, accident or murder. The common denominator in all this carnage is guns; especially automatic guns with large magazines.

Any other cause of this many deaths would be considered a national emergency. Unfortunately, in the case of gun deaths there’s been no national outcry, no bills or regulations passed, no solutions tried. Students and teachers continue to be mowed down in schools; children still, all too often, accidentally shoot their siblings, parents, or friends; and suicides remain rampant.

Incredibly, we seem more concerned about losing our guns than about the deaths they cause.

The NRA has told us the lie for eight years that our government wants to take away our guns and freedoms and we must defend our Second Amendment rights. They manufacture fear and use their money and influence to propagandize and pressure the people and Congress to oppose even common sense regulations.

It’s obscene that we continue to let the NRA manipulate us to fear losing our guns more than losing our children’s lives. What happened to our values? How many deaths will we accept before we agree to do whatever is necessary to put an end to this slaughter—200 a day, 1,000? Other countries have successfully dealt with this issue. It can be done! We just need the will and good sense to do it.