Dear America,
The news coming from your shores this weekend has broken our hearts. The senseless, mindless murder of 50 innocent people and the injury of many more is unthinkable. We send our love, compassion and best wishes. You, on the other hand, need to do more. Sending love and prayers and thoughts is fine, but it is not enough. You need to be furious, and you need to send that collective fury to every elected official in your land.
Living in a country that even a man as intelligent and caring as Barack Obama cannot get strong gun legislation in place should make your blood boil. Living in a country that accepts mass bloodshed so uncaring lobbyists can uphold some made-up view point that carrying lethal, destructive weaponry is a testament to their freedom should make you livid. Living in a country that saw 64 school shootings, 372 mass shootings and 13,286 people killed by firearms in one year should make you want to scream. Living in a country that cannot own and tackle a deadly, reoccurring problem that kills your citizens should make you angrier than anything in the world. For many of you it does, but hold that anger beyond the next few days and use it every day to make a change. For those of you who don't feel that anger, be ashamed.
In the UK we also have a problem with violence, and it is something we too must tackle, but the news in our papers isn't even close to the same scale as that in yours, and there is no argument in the world to justify it. No country can outlaw knives, we need them for doing more than cutting human flesh, but you can outlaw guns - as close to totally as you can get it - because they are meant for nothing more than killing. Guns do not kill people, in the USA people kill people using guns because they are allowed to have them, and every single gun owner is a normal person with no record, until they aren't.
The attack this weekend was an attack on LGBT+ people, mere days before it was a young singer, before that schools and movie theaters and colleges. It is everybody, you endanger everybody, and you need to fight to stop it. There is no debate. Just end it. Keep sending love and keep showing you care, because we know you do, but do more. You have to do more.
Best wishes
The World
P.S. we really do send our love