You cannot fix stupid in anyone else except yourself. You cannot force curiosity or self awareness. You can inspire them, but this is not deterministic.

It sucks. It is not blaming the victim. It is acknowledgement of the fact that worrying about things you cannot change is a pointless and useless waste of time. Only worry about things that are within your power to change right now. You can alter you. You can take every measure available to defend and protect you. In the present climate of politics, you need to take every available measure seriously. I have no emotion in this recommendation. It has nothing to do with blame or individuals. I don’t care that the victims here were trans. To me, we’re all just a spectrum of people and no people deserve prejudice or discrimination when they do no harm. Those that do harm deserve discrimination.

A gun is no guarantee and can be just as dangerous to the person carrying it, but personally, I would rather have control over my own destiny even if that means I only get to decide the one other person that leaves with me or if I’m ready to check out. That last one is loaded with my own chronic outlook and not intended as any implication or insinuation. I battle a lot with being a useless burden to family and get a ton of prejudice for other reasons. I get it. Life can suck when you’re different. Don’t go picking battles with your allies and friends willing to tell you the hard truths with love.