I know, I know, you need a break from all this. But two of the perpetrators of today’s massacre–well, of one of today’s two massacres, the bigger one that got more publicity–were found hiding in the city where we will be attending a wedding next month. We are all within six degrees of connection. Every time.

Here is Neil DeGrasse Tyson presenting the numbers we know but we don’t want to know. One. million. four. hundred. thousand. since Mr. Kitto’s fifth grade class at Seven Locks.

Here, at Slate, is an essay asking us what kind of a country do we want to live in. We do have a choice. Second Amendment and all, daily mass slaughter is just not how it was when I was growing up: our Congressmen have made decision after decision, persisting in spite of increasing consequences, that have brought us to where we are now.

Is this what we want more of?

(Edited to add this link.)

We have to wait a year before we can express ourselves with our ballots but we can sure speak up now and be heard just the same.

By my calculations, assuming there’s no increase in the rate–which there relentlessly has been every single year since 2001–that means 32,640 more Americans will be dead of gunshot wounds from household-owned firearms by Election Day next year, plus however many more while the lame-duck moldy-leftover politicians continue to offer prayers for the victims while actively doing everything they can to prevent God from helping us get ourselves out of our man-made mess.

Write and call your Congressperson (find them here) as if your very life depended on it. For 32,640 people whom you may know, it does.