I’ve been away from my blog for a bit because of a family member with health problems who has needed our care and attention. It wasn’t the controversial pneumonia like Hillary Clinton contracted on the campaign trail. The hyperbolic flap over that was not only ludicrous, it was cynical and deplorable.

But the issue of guns seems to have taken a bit of a back seat in the daily chaos of this Presidential campaign, not ever seen before in American history. The lies are daily. As a Hillary Clinton supporter, I am not talking about her. Believe me.

But last night one of the most frightening things I heard was Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s statement that the guns should be taken away from Hillary Clinton’s secret service agents. Deplorable. From the article:

Trump has long incorrectly suggested his Democratic opponent wants to overturn the Second Amendment and take away Americans’ right to own guns. At a rally in Miami, he again riffed about confiscating the agents’ guns and then went further.

“I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm, right?” Trump asked the crowd. “Take their guns away, she doesn’t want guns. Take their — and let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away. OK, it would be very dangerous.”

Really? See what happens to her?

Deplorable.

Never said before by a Presidential candidate.

Where is common sense?

What about Trump’s own secret service protection? Do they carry guns as well? Does he need protection as well? Would he want to be out there campaigning without that protection?

This is absolutely deplorable and dangerous. Suggesting violence against another candidate is not OK- Period.

Why is Donald Trump getting away with this loose and dangerous talk? He shouldn’t be. But he is held to a lower standard than his opponent. We have come to expect Trump to spew hatred and say dangerous, irresponsible, uninformed, and outright false things. For the life of me, I don’t get why we accept that he can say things like he did early in his campaign about shooting someone on 5th Avenue and not losing his support.

This is not funny. It’s serious business. Does he mean what he says? Or does he say what he means?

Have we actually sunk to this low level of discourse?

Sad and deplorable.

Insanity.

The thing is, real Americans are shot every day. About 90 a day and over 32,000 a year.

So do the gun rights extremists believe this dangerous talk? The answer is yes. Many of them are armed to the teeth and ready to fight their own government. Many of them hated President Obama. Some have threatened his life. All Presidents receive threats against their lives. The internet has made things more complicated for the secret service protection that we must have for our President. Just as candidates should be protected for very obvious reasons.

What we can’t accept is someone running for the Presidency who automatically receives the protection of the Secret Service to be making his own dangerous remarks about his opponent’s protection. Cynical and dangerous talk.

President Obama is our first Black President. Donald Trump has ramped up the fear and hatred of our first Black President by starting a birther movement that has dangerous and bigoted implications. Yesterday he tried to say that he now believed that President Obama was born in America.

To quote from Linus ( Charlie Brown character) in the Great Pumpkin:

Linus: Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He’s gotta pick this one. He’s got to. I don’t see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there’s not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.”

Halloween is coming fairly soon. Let’s not let the candidate who represents fear and would be one of the scariest Presidents, if elected, in American history. We ought to take a lesson from Linus. We need to pick the candidate who is sincere and is not cynical and dangerous when talking to the American public. Pick the candidate who seeks the sincere pumpkin patch and is without hypocrisy.

This is a turning point. It should have been long ago that Americans called Trump out for his lies but maybe now it will finally happen. The media is finally fed up as well they should be and perhaps now they will actually report on the lies of the man who could actually become our next President.

He is lying about Hillary Clinton’s wanting to take guns away. It is simply not true. Period. One can’t find her saying anything of the sort. But the lie has become a thing. Shame on those who believe this.

And this includes some of our own esteemed members of Congress who have been lied to and deceived into this dangerous idea. I wonder if they, too, are as cynical as Donald Trump and don’t really believe the lies from the corporate gun lobby but are using it to gain votes.

While Congress was away on the longest recess in history, over 4500 Americans lost their lives to gunshot injuries. The Brady Campaign and others made it clear that this was not OK. And as a result of actions taken by supporters of common sense gun measures, Congress members are paying attention and some are actually now realizing the truth that their own constituents want them to support Brady background checks for all gun sales. Check out what happened this week as a result of pressure from the Brady Campaign and the realization of the truth about gun violence:

After a one-on-one meeting with Brady Campaign President Dan Gross, Congressman David Jolly (R-FL) officially filed to cosponsor H.R. 1217, a bill to expand Brady background checks to gun sales at gun shows and online.

And guess what, some of their own constituents are also being shot on a daily basis.

In trying to deal with a family illness and thinking about other things in my life, the Presidential campaign has gone off the rails. Actually it went off the rails the minute Donald Trump became the Republican Presidential candidate. He is showing every day why the Republicans made a dangerous mistake in choosing him. If elected, he would be the most unqualified, inexperienced, and clown-like person ever to be elected to become leader of the free world.

Loose lips sink ships. We just can’t let our ship sink.

Please support common sense, reason, qualifications, experience, truth and sanity this fall. Gun violence is an issue of grave national consequence to our public health and safety. It’s time to be serious about the devastation to so many of our families. It’s time to get serious about the person who can lead us and make the changes that are necessary to prevent some of the rampant gun violence while not violating the rights of law abiding citizens to use their guns for legal purposes.

It’s also past time to stop listening to the lies. Donald Trump cannot be allowed to get away with his loose and dangerous statements that imply that something could happen to Hillary Clinton because of her common sense stance on gun violence prevention.

Let’s get to work. We can’t let the ship sink with a dangerous captain on board.