In 2010, the last year for which complete numbers are available, the number of gun deaths by suicide in the United States outnumbered homicides 19,392 to 11,078. If you add up all American gun deaths that year, including accidents, 3 out of 5 people who died from gunshot wounds took their own lives. Those figures are not an anomaly: With just a few exceptions, the majority of gun deaths in the United States have been self-inflicted every year since at least 1920.

This Boston Globe article from January isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know; there are far more gun suicides than homicides, and that has almost always been the case.

Every human being has ups and downs in their lives, and some people hit lows that are so low that they convince themselves that ending their lives is a better option than fighting forward. Like many of you, I know someone who silently suffered without sharing his pain with anyone else, and the first I knew of his torment was a phone call telling me that he had ended his life.

There has to be a better option than suicide, which is something on which gun owners and gun control advocates can agree… or at least, so one Moms Demand Action supporter thought.

@scaruso5555 So why not fight for it? Aren’t we all wanting to save as many lives as possible? #SuicideAwareness

— Debs (@deborahdouhner) October 26, 2013

@scaruso5555 @MDGunsBen It’s a multi-faceted approach. Yet with suicide being the leading cause of gun deaths you haven’t said much about it

— Debs (@deborahdouhner) October 28, 2013

She thought wrong.

Other prominent Moms Demand activists didn’t agree that specifically attempting to stop gun suicides was nearly as important as stopping guns in general, including Sandy Phillips, mother of one of James Holmes’s victims in the Aurora theater shooting.

@scaruso5555 @deborahdouhner Guns are the #1 choice for suicide. It's the ease of getting the gun that causes it to be #1 choice.

— Sandy Phillips (@MamaRedfield) October 28, 2013

@deborahdouhner @scaruso5555 Here's the problem…you're talking suicide and we're talking gun deaths. Apples to oranges

— Sandy Phillips (@MamaRedfield) October 28, 2013

Debs wasn’t seeing the logic of that approach. If stopping gun deaths was the real goal of Moms Demand Action, shouldn’t stopping the leading type of gun deaths be at the top of the groups list of priorities?

@MamaRedfield @scaruso5555 But my question is why – when 20,000 gun deaths are suicides – is mental health reform not a key priority?

— Debs (@deborahdouhner) October 28, 2013

Shannon Watts, the public relations maven turned founder of Moms Demand, stated her opinion flatly that it wasn’t.

@deborahdouhner @MamaRedfield @scaruso5555 You should do that Debs. We have our hands full with gun reform.

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 28, 2013

Other Moms Demand supporters disagree with Watts, and suggested they could target reform and suicide prevention at the same time.

@shannonrwatts The two can work together. IMO

— Harrisburg Under Fire (@HarrisburgU_F) October 28, 2013

Watts quickly and firmly let it be known that Moms Demand Action isn’t interested in stopping gun deaths. What Moms Demand Action wants is gun prohibition.

@HarrisburgU_F yep — but not our mission. And some use mental health as straw man. Guns are our problem.

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 28, 2013

The conversation quickly fell apart after Watts and Phillips let their masks slip to reveal their actual agenda. They accused Debs of being an imposter and an outside agent, and blocked her from further conversations.

“Debs” asked valid, legitimate questions about stopping the leading cause of gun deaths, to the leadership of an organization that publicly claims stopping gun deaths as their primary goal.

She was then told that stopping gun deaths isn’t important.

Shannon Watts and Sandy Phillips have let the mask slip, and they’ve confirmed what we’ve long feared. Moms Demand Action does not care about “gun sense” or stopping violent crime.

Their goal is attacking guns, period.