The slaughter that took place on Saturday night at Club Q, a gay bar in Colorado Springs, has brought up a lot of emotions for me since I’m from Colorado and have spent a lot of formative time in these types of venues. I shared some more on that elsewhere, if of interest.

But for the purposes of this newsletter, I want to separate that out and address a fundamental reality of the facts surrounding this latest mass shooting. 

That reality is: This mass murder could have been prevented, but political leaders in Colorado Springs let it happen. They made a conscious choice that the lives of unarmed victims are less important than a lunatics’ right to acquire firearms. 

This is not hyperbole. I do not mean it in the esoteric “we all share responsibility” sense or as a broad critique of gun culture. I’m not even talking about the uptick in hateful rhetoric targeting the LGBT community which we’ve seen over the last few years and […]