Watch this powerful gun control ad

This ad is probably the most persuasive argument for gun control that I’ve ever seen:

Some have argued that in the few months since the Sandy Hook shooting raised serious questions about masculinity and gun violence in this country, our collective passion for gun control has diminished. And gun enthusiasts have tried everything to reinforce this idea, even co-opting women’s voices to further agenda by pushing the idea that “women want guns” to do things like end sexual assault, for example. But we know that telling women to get a gun is not rape prevention. And recent developments show the true trajectory on this issue as towards gun control. As Samhita wrote yesterday of Michelle Obama’s appearance at a Chicago High School on Wednesday, the push for stronger gun laws from outside the beltway is intensifying. Moms Demand Action launched a new campaign to drive support for stronger gun laws on Wednesday, just a day before the Senate Republicans yielded to allow for debate for the new gun control legislation on the floor. The stakes have long since been high in addressing gun violence in America; nearly 3,000 deaths nationwide this year, all at the hand of the gun. (Rick Warren’s son, purchased an unregistered gun online that he used to take his own life because of laxed nonexistant background checks.)

This is all really to say that no one is immune to the danger of violence in America. It’s wishful thinking on my part that the debate in the Senate will yield speedy passage for policy points that 90% of agree on. If you can do background checks for job applications, then why oh why is it so much easier for me to get a gun than birth control pills?

Mostly, I’m haunted by the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson’s take in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, “How do we find ourselves asking kindergarteners to be more courageous in the face of a gunman than politicians are in the face of the gun lobby?”

We must be more courageous than that.