Our founders never intended this.

I'm eating breakfast ahead of work, and they just showed photos on the news of some of those who were gunned down in the school in Nashville yesterday.  One of the photos really got to me.  It was of a little girl.  Her life is over now.  She was just trying to go to school.  She should have had the right to be safe in school.  Aren't Americans supposed to have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"  Since when does the liberty part eclipse the life part?  And doesn't liberty include the liberty to go out in public without the very real possibility of being gunned down?  Why should any citizen have the ability to own a weapon of mass murder, a military style assault rifle, capable of mowing down hundreds of people in moments?  Our founders never, ever foresaw or intended that when they penned our awesome constitution.  You will not find any such "right" in that document.  But shouldn't that little girl have had the right to go to school without being gunned down?  Shouldn't we all have the right to go to church, synagogue, mosque, the grocery store, the mall, outdoor events, dance clubs, the list goes on and on and on, without fear and reality of being gunned down?

The vast majority of the American people are for a federal assault weapons ban.  Yet since more of our elected representatives are apparently in the pocket of the NRA than actually want to uphold their oath to represent us, we do not have one, nor does one seem to be on the horizon.  So the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is now infused with fear and grief, and drills for our nation's children in school on what to do if someone starts shooting.  What a perverse future, this present day is, of what our founders intended for us.