Thoughts and Prayers Won’t Stop Bullets

Another school shooting. Another round of thoughts and prayers. This time, it’s Florida State University—where students should be studying for finals, planning their futures, and building lives. Instead, they were forced into lockdown, into trauma, into another chapter of America’s endless cycle of gun violence. We cannot keep meeting mass shootings with hollow condolences and empty gestures. Thoughts and prayers don’t stop bullets. They never have.

It’s time to stop pretending that this is just the cost of living in America. It’s time to stop treating school shootings like natural disasters; tragic but unavoidable. They are not. This is a direct result of a system that allows dangerous individuals easy access to deadly weapons. This is what happens when legislators prioritize campaign donations over community safety. Every time our leaders fail to act, they are making a choice. A choice to let this continue.

Gun violence is not inevitable. This is not about partisanship. It’s about basic human decency. We need universal background checks, red flag laws with real enforcement, and bans on assault-style weapons that were designed for war, not college campuses.

We are far past the point of polite conversation. This is a crisis, and it requires urgency. If you’re angry, good. You should be. Channel that anger into action. Call your senators. Email your representatives. Show up at town halls. Demand that they pass comprehensive gun reform or step aside for someone who will. We cannot keep sacrificing students, teachers, concertgoers, and grocery store shoppers to political cowardice.

Every mass shooting chips away at our sense of safety and possibility. And yet, after each one, our leaders offer platitudes instead of policy. That is not leadership. It’s negligence. We need to hold them accountable. Thoughts and prayers didn’t protect the students at FSU. Legislation could have. And still can.

This moment demands more than mourning. It demands movement. The time for change isn’t tomorrow, it’s now.

Now is the time. Find your representatives here: https://www.congress.gov/members.

Call. Write. Don’t stop. Demand real gun reform. Lives depend on it.

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