Over on Facebook I’ve been nattering on about horses and the World Science Fiction Convention  because I truly cannot make sense of Dallas.  Or perhaps it’s all painfully obvious and understandable, and I’m trying to avoid facing it.
We have a divided society with economic and social inequality. We have a fraught history as regards race in this country which we have never honestly faced. We have an increasingly militarized police force and minority populations who feel separated and disenfranchised from their country, government, society.   Who feel that their lives don’t matter as they are denied decent housing, education, and protection.
 
And we have guns.
 
So many, many guns and people who have come to think that guns are how you solve disagreements. Or get yours. Or make a statement.  Or prove you still have power.
 
We desperately need to learn to put away the guns. Pick up words again. Learn to talk. Learn to listen. Learn to hear.  Learn to look past superficial differences and see the common humanity braided in our very DNA.