It’s never more than want and need of the ability to own what can destroy
Good weapons in the hands of righteous people who can be deployed to single out any threat to us are quick to double down on everyone else

The images of abject madmen tend to mirror those who claim they do no wrong
It’s all about protecting “freedom;” a freedom under loaded gun
Your golden notion of liberty sure looks to me like casualties

And it ain’t no secret now, my friend, that something needs to change
You can make it better, but all you’re offering keeps these wounds so tender
Horror strikes, send thoughts and prayers, the same bullshit charade
Dying in American skin or reared to live afraid

I know you think you’re persecuted, but the nation is made a victim of your fear
When any given stranger is evil and somehow you’re the hero in the clear
While you cower at government…but never the right specific suspects

If this is really our best effort, my spirit isn’t gone but it’s fading fast
Running through the same few motions
Taught to play the barefoot waltz on glass while everyone has a say
But those who talk fast often act last

Can we reach for a caliber higher than this?
Something needs to change
You can make it better, but all you’re offering keeps these wounds so tender
Interest talks and big bucks stalk as more just walk the plank
Thrown overboard to feed the sharks so you can lick your plate

It’s really a sad, sad state we’re in: denial or wishful insert thinking
"Now’s not time for this,” but sure, buy in, we’ll sell and blink when
Horror strikes, send thoughts and prayers, the same bullshit charade
Dying in American skin or reared to live afraid
Can’t this shit just stop yet?

In this broken time, we only think in zero-sum fallacies; what helps you only hinders me
The authors’ unsaid lines can grant us all our livelihood but also from the grave be obsolete
And in this broken time, where everyone feels some degree of shattered, only we condemn the shards, it seems
So take a place in line, pleading for these editors and publishers to raise another ending

Know we’re not all evil
Hope we’re not too far gone yet
But this bearing arms for despairing, long-lost hearts
…cannot be a solution
…promotes more execution
What choice left but rebuking this American sin?