Update after the shooting in Baton Rouge: I wrote this a week before it was to be published, just like I always do. I had to do a quick update after what happened in Baton Rouge on Sunday. Are we ready to do something about this now, or is it going to take a few more senseless deaths?

In case you don’t know, there was a shooting in Dallas Texas on Friday, July 8. One man killed five police officers, and wounded several others. It was a terrible tragedy. The shooter claimed that he did this terrible thing, because of two events that took place earlier that week. Events in which African American men were shot and killed by police officers. In one instance, a man was shot in front of his wife and son.

I waited this long to write about this for two reasons. The first reason is that this is a big issue, way bigger than the stuff I usually write about, and I wanted to do it right. The second reason is that I figure there are people around this time that are forgetting about this shooting.

And we can’t have that.

Just after the shooting, everyone wanted to talk about it. Everyone was angry about it, and we should be. We wanted to talk about mental health. We want to talk about ‘anti police sentiments in our culture’. We want to talk about how African Americans are treated by police, and we sure as hell need to be talking about that.

There was another shooting, just a few weeks ago, in Orlando. A man walked into a nightclub called Pulse and killed a whole lot of people. Here’s the blog post I wrote about it. Everybody wanted to talk after that one, too, including me. We wanted to talk about the dark parts of our society that hate those who are different from them. Fools, liars, opportunists and hate mongers had a lot to say about Muslim Americans, as though Christians never kill people. Again, in short, everyone had a lot to say.

I know that in my Orlando piece I gave you some statistics about shootings in America in 2016. The updated number, as of July 11^th, is 232. But no one wants to talk about that.

I thought I had seen the worst of it during the fallout from the Columbine shootings. I thought that nothing would ever be as scary as September 11^th. I never thought that these kinds of horrors would become commonplace. American Privilege, I thought that these sorts of things happened in other countries, with unsteady governments and untrustworthy peacekeepers.

I was wrong. School shootings, domestic terrorism and hate crimes have all become commonplace. It keeps happening, and happening, and we can’t seem to cause it. And I think I know why.

Here’s a list of things that American’s want to talk about after a mass shooting.

• The availability of mental health resources.
• School security guards.
• Bullying.
• Bad parenting.
• Racism.
• ‘Bad’ Music.
• The Catcher in the Rye, and other dangerous books.
• Drugs.
• Underage drinking.
• Violent tv.
• Violent video games.
• Single parents.

Here’s a list of things we don’t want to talk about after a mass shooting.

• Gun control

Now, I told you all that to tell you this. There’s this thing called the TPP, it stands for Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is already a thing in a lot of countries, like Canada for instance. Some, like the President, would like it to come here. I can tell you why this is a bad idea, but I think it’s better to let Elizabeth Warren tell you, since she’s so much better at it.

Click here to watch her video to Credo members about the TPP

Basically, our laws would be subject to a board that has no oversight, at all. And that includes gun laws.

So often, I feel like everything’s going to hell, and there’s nothing I can do. But here’s something small you can do. Here’s a link to a list of all current state representatives, alphabetically by state, and their contact information. Please call, write, email and otherwise let them know that you’re not going to stand for TPP, and that you’re done talking about everything else but what we should be talking about.