Hello! There won’t be a new comic this week because of some intense violence that happened in my hometown. I just wasn’t able to make jokes in aftermath of the shooting in Boulder, Colorado.

If you didn’t hear about what happened, a gunman opened fire in a grocery store in Boulder on Monday. This store was only blocks away from the high school I attended and is in a neighborhood where parts of my family still live. We were lucky – no one from my family was in that store at the time. But ten people lost their lives on a trip to the grocery store that day.

I can’t tell you what it was like, waiting to hear from friends and family to make sure that they were ok. I hope I never have to do that again.

Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. Checking for exits, planning how we might escape from a grocery store just in case the dice rolled the wrong way for us shouldn’t be our normal. And it’s not the normal in every. single. country. that has gun control laws.

I normally don’t ask for action. But if you have a moment please call your representatives. Write them. Let them know in no uncertain terms that if they don’t work for gun regulation you will vote against them.

I’ve included some links if you would like to donate some money to the victims, as well as some gun control non-profits.

COLORADO HEALING FUND

THE COALITION TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE

SANDY HOOK PROMISE

BRADY CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE