These days are becoming painful to anticipate and to live.

I don't want to write a lengthy essay on the history and legalities of the Second Amendment and all of the knots our nation has twisted itself into by trying to divine the thoughts and intentions of its writers. I just want to make a comment as a mother and grandmother in response to the consequences of being so focused on the idea of "wood" that we can no longer see either tree or forest.

Every day we find ourselves confronted with needless deaths--someone's child, someone's grandchild, someone's husband, wife, lover, someone's brother sister....someone. Deaths that are not just single slayings but wholesale massacres. Bloodbaths. Sacrifices on the altar of an industry run amuk. And we see those who rush to defend the ever escalating mayhem with no thought to the idea that arsenals create neither peace or freedom from fear or happiness.

The days are becoming painful--for those who personally experience the loss of life and health and for the communities which experience the shattering of peace and trust in each other. Days that are painful for the majority of people who understand the immorality of free marketing death.

We say "Not one more" and we must mean it because too much ground has been ceded to bullies and criminals. No society tolerant of an endless bloodletting can claim to be a civilized one. This day has been painful, and the week is young. Will tomorrow be painful too?