Three Elephants

Guns don't kill people,

but people with untreated and

stigmatized mental illness in a

society that glorifies violence and infamy

who have easy access to powerful weapons will,

too often, use guns to kill many other people

in their final act of fear and frustration.

That puts three elephants in the room:

(1) mental illness stigmatized and swept under the rug;

(2) virtual and actual violence as the answer for everything;

(3) rarely-questioned levels of public access to weapons

designed specifically to extinguish multiple lives in an instant - though the NRA has long held a Hogwarts-worthy

Invisibility Cloak over this third beast.

Any one of these three will crush

our culture if we continue to ignore it.

All three of them have clearly demonstrated

societal rogue-tendencies over and over.

Where is the pachyderm-whisperer

who can subdue these beasts so that

meaningful conversation and reform can begin?

© 2012 Todd Jenkins