Nothing matters today for dozens of parents, friends and families of the children and staff massacred or terrorized Tuesday at their school in Uvalde, Texas.

Soaring gas prices, Trump’s Big Lie, COVID-19 infection rates don’t matter today. Mattering least of all are the meaningless, hollow and cruel offerings of “thoughts and prayers” from political leaders who tout their five-star rating from the National Rifle Association for working to undermine gun-control laws that might have saved lives in Uvalde, and all over the nation.

The Uvalde victims of this week’s gun massacre join the millions and millions of other parents and children terrorized every day by the thought of being inside the next school, the next classroom chosen by a shooter with a gun on mission to kill.

Nothing matters today for the families who suffered similar aching losses that have previously struck Aurora, Littleton, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Bailey and Arapahoe County.

Each time someone guns down people in a store, a school, a theater or even a town square, past victims and families are terrorized again, along with the rest of us.

These past surviving massacre victims and their families remember back to the “thoughts and prayers” they, too, received from people like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a long, list of sordid fellow Republicans and Democrats alike who offered nothing else to stem the plague of gun violence in the nation.

Instead, the nation has for years been awash in political leaders who gaslight the nation by insisting that it’s not the guns.

Only liars and fools hold onto that trembling thread of nonsense.

Of course it’s the guns.

It’s the guns, the lack of mental health care, the lack of education, the poverty and our national obsession with violence. But more than anything, the easy access and promotion of handguns, assault rifles, tactical gear and more are what have led to the shooting of more than 117,000 Americans each year and become the leading cause of death among children and teens in the country.

Facts compiled by Brady United from the Centers for Disease Control reveal just how much it is the guns in this country:

Every day, 321 people are shot in the United States. Among those:

? 111 people die from their gunshot wounds

? 210 survive gunshot injuries

? 95 are intentionally shot by someone else and survive

? 42 are murdered

? 65 die from gun suicide

? 10 survive their suicide attempt

? 1 is killed unintentionally

? 90 are shot unintentionally and survive

It’s the guns that are killing us from an industry that makes billions promoting a misguided rewriting of history, implying that founding fathers of the nation somehow supported our right to murder each other by the tens of thousands each year.

All of the survivors of gun violence, and the friends and families of those who were slaughtered, do not care about the deceitful and irrelevant excuses offered by craven political leaders who care only about gaining power, remaining in power by appeasing the minority of Americans who believe guns are not a problem and the gun industries that prop up these soulless “leaders.”

The only thing preventing the nation from escaping endless shootings and massacres is signaling that those who refuse to act against the gun industry to protect Americans will be removed at the ballot box from power.

It means people who normally sit out the trouble it takes to vote or who shrug their shoulders when confronted with pro-gun-industry propaganda and lies can no longer stand on the sidelines.

Few things are as certain in this world as the absolute guarantee that if a majority of American voters push back against elected leaders refusing to budge on gun control, gun control will come swiftly and widely.

But until those who refuse to succumb to our national fate as withering victims of gun massacres and violence become the majority on Election Day, the gun industry, their lobbyists, their bullies and their lackeys will continue to offer thoughts and prayers to the tens of thousands of shooting victims they do nothing for each year.

Aurora Sentinel editorial board