We need to be safer

Ican’t stop crying. I wake up crying. I go to bed crying. The faces of the 58 people gunned down in Las Vegas, Nev., stay with me. They should. Their stories, the sounds of their screams, the faces and stories of the people who stayed behind, putting their own lives at risk to help others — the wounded and the dead — to safety. I shouldn’t “get over it” — no thinking, feeling human being should. These horrific deaths should haunt us, all of us, because we have done nothing to make it harder for this kind of killing to happen.

I keep asking myself, “How many more people have to die before we have some commonsense gun laws in this country?” Then I realize that that is the wrong question. The right question is, “How can we make the voices of the helpers and the survivors louder than the gun lobby?”

More than 500 people were shot, yet many of them told their rescuers, “I’m shot in the arm [or the leg], go help someone else who needs it more first.” We have to make this message louder than any message the National Rifle Association puts out.

We are a nation of people who, at the core, help each other. We are a nation of people who look out for each other. Let’s hold onto that. Let’s have basic, commonsense gun reform: background checks, mental health checks, bans on assault weapons and any contraptions that can convert weapons into automatic weapons. Yes, everyone has the right to bear arms, but no man has the right to be his own army. Please, the heart’s blood of this country is bleeding out. We need to be safer.