I can say, without a doubt, that the United States as a gun problem. This is not an assumption. This is not even an uneducated guess. This. Is. A. Fact. The United States of America has a gun problem.

To go hand in hand with that, I can say, without another doubt, that the United States also has a domestic terrorist problem (though of course, the media won’t call it that because it is white, American men who commit these acts — not the dark-skinned foreigners they’re trying to convince us to fear).

On the evening of Nov. 7, 12 people were shot and killed at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California. The suspect? A white, American ex-marine who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a Facebook post prior to the shooting, the gunman stated the following: “I hope people call me insane. Wouldn’t that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah … I’m insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is ‘hopes and prayers’ or ‘keep you in my thoughts …’ every time … and wonder why these keep happening.”

And he’s right. These shootings keep happening and no one in Congress is doing anything about it. The National Rifle Association has lined the pockets of multiple Republicans with enough money to keep their mouths shut on the issue while innocent bodies are being piled on top of one another.

The NRA continuously fights for the right to bear arms when they aren’t the ones to feel threatened. Back during the reign of the Black Panther Party, the NRA supported gun control when members of the Black Panthers were the ones in possession of the weapons.

Following a protest by the Black Panthers on the steps of the California statehouse, politicians immediately passed the Mulford Act on April 5, 1967. This state bill not only prohibited the open carry of firearms but also took California down the path to have the strictest gun laws in America and jump-started national gun control restrictions.

The NRA fully supported this motion and fought alongside the government to implement stricter gun control laws in their attempt to keep the weapons out of the hands of African-Americans.

According to Adam Winkler, author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” this “law was part of a wave of laws that were passed in the late 1960s regulating guns especially to target African Americans. Including the Gun Control Act of 1968 which adopted new laws prohibiting certain people from owning guns, providing for beefed-up licensing and inspection of gun dealers and restricting the importation of cheap, Saturday night specials (pocket pistols) that were popular in some urban communities.”

During their reign, the NRA was only intimidated by the Black Panthers, so in retaliation they implemented a set of gun laws that restricted their ability to purchase one. Yes, you understood that correctly. The NRA was only intimidated by a group of black men and women armed with AR-15’s so they implemented a law to restrict public access to guns.

So by that logic, I understand that the NRA is much more terrified of armed black men and women than they are of white domestic terrorists actually committing mass murder? They prefer to restrict access to guns from the Black Panthers and black Americans but turn the other cheek when someone with a mental disorder has access to a silencer and shoots up a concert in Las Vegas.

The NRA prefers to restrict access to guns from the Black Panthers after a non-violent demonstration on the steps of the California statehouse but not after a mom who shrieks on national television for “No. More. Guns.”

The NRA prefers to restrict access to guns from the Black Panthers but instead allows their spokesperson, Dana Loesch, to intimidate and demean the Parkland students after the vicious attack on their school after a mentally ill student decided to take the lives of 17 students.

The NRA prefers to restrict access to guns from the Black Panthers but refuses to listen to the plea of the American people about common sense gun control — but they need to.

Guns should not be easily accessible. There should be background checks, there should be supervised classes. There should be no reason to buy a semi-automatic rifle, and if your argument is that you use them to hunt, you should not be hunting anyway. The earth will be barren by the time we’re through with it.

America needs common sense gun reform. We do not need thoughts and prayers. We need politicians to stop being paid with blood money.