Long but important. Please read:

It's bigger than the guns. Politically, I am moderately conservative, but even I see that the it's the culture that created our obsession with guns being equal to power, masculinity, and freedom.

It''s not gun ownership per se to blame, but the culture. Stop "Guns are Cool" in its tracks. A large part of our problem started with an inundation of action movies and video games in which the hero is always killing something. Take a stand and call out your grandkids to listen to music/television that promotes violence in your house. It's not just rap and hip hop, country music promotes gun violence too. Kids need to learn history not get all hopped up on fantasy violence. They need to be outside with their peers where they learn that (unlike the sterile world of a gaming system) gravity, branches, rocks, and a bigger kid, actually hurts.

Teach your children/grandchildren about self-defense, even teach them about how to shoot a gun, but also teach them that it is a terrible and life-changing thing to ever have to pull the trigger. Teach them that law enforcement is there to protect us and for the most part, they do an excellent job. If you have a problem with law enforcement, solve it, but stop badmouthing the people who are protecting you. Teach them too that most people are good, trustworthy - not potential killers.

If you have weapons, they should be out of sight and never put on display as something to boast about. Stop telling the stories, even the first-time-you-caught-a-fish story. Teach children that it is a sobering thing to kill something to feed your body, and one should be mindful of the animal that died.

Don't ever congratulate someone for their fishing or hunting exploits. Has anyone ever congratulated you for going to the market? No one over the age of 12 should EVER show a photo of their catch on social media. It's sociopathic. Confront people who do. You have to create the culture that it's sociopathic to brag or take pride killing for sport.

Don't ever buy anything ever that promotes gun violence - hunting stickers for cars, hats, t-shirts etc. It's insidious how the gun culture came in through the backdoor here. Never ever buy anything - pink, green, brown or otherwise that has so much as a speck of camouflage on it. Ever. In some places in the Caribbean, it is illegal to wear camouflage. Might not be a bad idea. I saw a man in Oklahoma wearing a shirt that read, "Kill It, Eat It." Wow, impressive .

Work locally to ensure your law enforcement is not only well-funded but supported. Many people started getting guns here when they started perceiving that law enforcement couldn't protect them.

Remind people that there are already limits to the Second Amendment, so stop belly-aching about gun laws. You already can't have a rocket launcher, a nuclear warhead, etc. in your garage so stop nitpicking about the the citizen government voting for limits on what people should/can have in their homes.

Don't be ridiculous (speaking first hand as the daughter and wife of former military members) about promoting the military. Killing people to protect a nation or nations is a necessary evil but it should not be glorified or propagandized. There is a reason our grandfathers came home and did not speak of war.

Don't ever say, "Thank you for your service" to a military member. We do not live in a time of drafts. People in the military do so for pay, benefits, seeing the world, learning skills, etc. and being in the military does not make one a hero. They are people doing their jobs. Thank a teacher instead.

Do not support media outlets that go on and on about a gun-related event that propagates fear or promotes the shooter.

It starts at home and with your family. The more guns there are, the less free we are - locking ourselves behind walls and gates.

It's neither sexy, manly, nor powerful to have to be constantly reminding people that you have to be surrounded by weapons or their accoutrements. In fact, it screams of weakness.

It's not the guns, the movies, the music, the video games, the camouflage hats and shirts, constantly telling fish/hunting stories, shortages in law enforcement funding, glorifying the military, the bumper sticker indicating that you are a hunter, a Facebook photo of a dead buck...it's ALL of it.

How many shootings in New York this year?
How many stabbings in London this year?

Try this:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...e-than-londons

Scary isn't it?

And more evidence that guns are not the answer.

Knives then?

Neither.

Right. OK.

When threatened by a knife wielding, drugged up thug.