America has a problem, one that is uniquely ours, gun violence.

Americans own more than 400 million guns, more than any country in the world,

and our Second Amendment right to buy, sell, and carry firearms

is more protected and more prominent in daily life today than ever before.

For centuries we've attempted to balance the right to bear arms and all the dangers that come with it through regulation.

But in the last four decades, that balance has shifted.

Now guns seem to be one of America's most intractable debates.

President Kennedy said, we'll go to the moon this decade, and we did.

We were interested in going to the moon.

We're not interested in solving the gun problem.

The gun has become enshrined as a political symbol in America,

one that simultaneously represents our most cherished values, freedom, democracy, individualism.

We're all familiar with the old saying, God created man and Colonel Colt made us equal.

As well as our deepest shame.

Freedom isn't free.

That's 133 deaths a day.

Today, most Americans agree.

Something must change.

We don't have to give up our freedoms to better protect us as a society. It's all doable.

But we have to start having a rational discussion and we have to realize how we got you.

So how did we get here? How did the United States

become so divided over guns? How did violence become so epidemic and can we ever find a way forward?

...