YOU THINK AMERICA IS SAFE? THINK AGAIN.
I just read about yet another mass shooting—this time, right in Houston, Texas. A house party that spilled over into a nearby Jack in the Box ended with 14 people injured and one dead. A casual gathering turned into a bloodbath, and just like that, another statistic was born. I had to shake my head. Not in disbelief, but in exhaustion. Because this is the America that too many people glorify. And Texas? It’s ground zero for this madness. There are no background checks, no waiting periods, and damn near anyone can legally own a gun. It’s the Wild West all over again—but with Wi-Fi and TikTok.
Now, I live in Ghana. I chose peace over chaos. Safety over illusions. While no place is perfect, I sleep better knowing I’m not dodging bullets to get groceries. I spoke to someone here about what’s happening in America and they were shocked. They had no clue it was this bad. That’s why I’m talking about this right now —not just as commentary, but as a warning. America is not what the brochures say it is. It’s not what Instagram shows. The lights are bright, but behind the neon is darkness. And Texas is a microcosm of that national sickness.
Guns in the hands of stressed-out, emotionally unstable, drug-ridden individuals is not a recipe for safety. It’s a ticking time bomb. The average American is dealing with pressure that no human should carry—rent overdue, food prices skyrocketing, health care unaffordable, jobs treating people like machines, and mental health in freefall. Add in social media lies, where everyone’s pretending to live a life of luxury, and it’s no wonder people snap. When you’ve got a Glock before you’ve got a therapist, this is the result.
The media doesn’t show the real story. They sanitize the chaos, spoon-feed you distraction, and keep it moving. But the numbers don’t lie. More than 40,000 gun deaths a year. More than 600 mass shootings annually. Churches. Schools. Movie theaters. Grocery stores. Random street corners. No place is sacred. You might survive COVID, but you won’t survive Walmart. America is one giant pressure cooker—and the release valve is always violence.
And it’s not just guns. It’s the homelessness crisis. The opioid epidemic. The untreated mental illness. The rage, the broken homes, the poverty, the loneliness, the desperation. This is a nation of people who are angry, armed, and emotionally unstable—and the laws allow them to carry deadly weapons wherever they go. Tell me that’s not a war zone.
The Texas Gun Laws: Open Season, No Protection
Let’s get into the facts. In 2021, Texas passed a “constitutional carry” law—meaning anyone 21 or older can carry a handgun in public without a license or training. No background checks. No waiting period. No need to prove you know how to use it. Just buy it and pack heat. You can walk into a Walmart, buy some Skittles and a shotgun, and no one blinks. This isn’t policy—it’s insanity.
Texas is one of the easiest states to get a gun. Private sellers don’t need to run background checks. Red flag laws? Practically nonexistent. Universal background checks? Rejected. And the worst part? Lawmakers don’t care. In fact, they keep doubling down on the gun culture. Why? Because the gun lobby pays them well. Because fear sells. Because chaos is power. And because dead citizens don’t vote for reform.
Houston, Dallas, Austin—each one of these cities has experienced an uptick in gun violence. Houston recorded over 470 homicides in 2022 alone, the most in decades. And it’s not just gang members or criminals—it’s everyday people. Folks with no criminal history who just snapped. People pushed to the brink by economic stress, mental illness, drugs, and the fantasy life they see online. And the system hands them a gun and says, “Good luck.”
What’s worse is that Texas has some of the weakest safeguards when it comes to mental health and guns. You can be on medication, have a documented psychiatric issue, and still legally own a firearm. And let’s not even get into the number of domestic abusers who still have access to weapons because of loopholes. It’s not about safety—it’s about control. And fear is the tool they use to keep everyone in check.
Open carry is legal. Concealed carry is legal. You can carry in churches, at protests, and even near schools. The message is clear: in Texas, guns matter more than people. And what’s happening there is spreading like a virus across the nation. More states are copying these laws. More people are arming themselves out of fear. And more bodies are dropping every single day.
The Truth the Media Won’t Tell You
Most people overseas still believe in the American Dream. They think it’s all about opportunity and freedom. But they don’t see the morgues overflowing. They don’t see families burying their kids after school shootings. They don’t see the tent cities filled with homeless veterans, single mothers, and drug-addicted youth. They don’t see the anger on the streets, the hopelessness in people’s eyes, the madness simmering below the surface.
America has become a performance. People pretend to be happy, pretend to be rich, pretend to be okay—but they’re not. They’re dying inside. They’re working three jobs and still can’t make rent. They’re drowning in student loans. They’re fighting depression and addiction. And instead of solutions, the system gives them distractions. New iPhones, new Netflix shows, more TikTok trends. But the pain doesn’t go away. It festers.
And when that pain explodes, it takes lives. It takes innocence. It shatters communities. And the cycle starts again. A few days of news coverage, a few thoughts and prayers, and then silence—until the next shooting. And the next. And the next. It’s become routine. America is numb to its own violence. It’s in denial about its collapse.
The people who suffer the most are always the working class, the poor, and the mentally ill. The ones who fall through the cracks. The ones who are targeted and ignored. And yet, they’re the ones most impacted by the consequences of lax gun laws. They live in the war zones. They bury their dead. They cry themselves to sleep at night. And still, no one listens.
The Great American Lie
They call it the “land of the free,” but how free can you be when you’re always looking over your shoulder? When you can’t go to a movie or send your kids to school without worrying about bullets flying? When you can’t afford to be sick or unemployed without risking homelessness? When your skin color determines how the police treat you? This isn’t freedom—it’s psychological warfare.
America sells a dream and delivers a nightmare. It’s a country built on illusion. And the truth is ugly. If you're poor, if you're Black or Brown, if you're mentally ill, if you're queer, if you're undocumented—this system is not designed to protect you. It’s designed to use you. Drain you. And discard you.
People in Ghana, Nigeria, the Caribbean, and across the diaspora need to hear this. Stop idolizing America. Stop believing the hype. You are safer where you are. You have your problems, yes—but bullets don’t fly through your bedroom window at night. You don’t need to arm your children to go to church. You don’t live with the daily fear that some stranger having a bad day will end your life.
I’m grateful I left. I’m grateful I can breathe. I’m grateful I’m not a target. I’m grateful I can walk the streets and not worry about a man with an AR-15 having a meltdown. America is at war—with itself. And unless it controls its demons, it will keep devouring its people one shooting at a time.
Don’t Believe the Hype—Stay Where You Are
America is not safe. It is not peaceful. It is not stable. It is a country in decline, rotting from the inside out. The violence isn’t random—it’s systemic. The gun laws aren’t broken—they were designed this way. The people aren’t just angry—they’re broken. And the leadership doesn’t care—they’re profiting off the chaos.
This is not about politics. It’s about survival. It’s about truth. And the truth is, America is a war zone with good lighting. A beautiful corpse wearing designer clothes. A failed state pretending to be a superpower. And unless you want to be part of that decay, stay away.
You’re not missing out. You’re being spared.