Something about gun control just occurred to me. We need it.
Conservatives who are pro gun and concerned about having guns to protect themselves from their own government, are part of the group who have a strangle hold on America in many questionable ways. IF they are truly worried about their government to the point that they need assault rifles should they need to bear arms against their own nation and government, then they should vote appropriately to keep that from being a concern.
So that they do not need guns to protect themselves from their own government. Then they would not need assault weapons, just if anything, hunting and sport weapons and assault weapons (ASSAULT) weapons, are not sport firearms. Listen to this again.
Assault weapons are not sport firearms.
They are weapons.
If they think they need to protect themselves from their own government they need to be active in their government to keep vigilant so they never need weapons against their own stewards of their nation. if their nation is not going the direction they think it should be going and they are involved, perhaps they are looking at things wrong and in the end they are the ones who aren't seeing reality, who aren't evolving. Assault weapons are fun.
There is no doubt about that. Owning a fighter jet or a tank would be fun. Boom, ha ha. Yes, fun. But we should limit weapons. Otherwise nukes would be legal and most would agree that isn't a good idea. So there are limits, there is a border. Perhaps we do not need assault weapons. Yes the old argument when guns are outlawed only criminals will have guns is a double meaning. Only thugs will have and use guns illegally and only law abiding citizens will own them illegally because they have the moral right somehow to them.
If we have guns being used illegally more guns aren't the answer. Social programs are. Yes, that means spending money and spending it correctly. And I wouldn't look to a conservative for that answer. We need mental health considerations and programs. We need to address the things that have led us down a path of having more people in prison than any other country, more deaths by gun than any other country in peace time.
We can have guns enough however and of a type to protect ourselves against illegal guns. Yes, some will die because they too do not have a machine gun. But that is part of life. It's unfair. But when you consider the number of these incidents it's really not much of an issue, it's a fear stoked by people with an agenda that goes all the way up to the gun manufacturers and back around to the most powerful lobby in the world. The US gun lobby. The NRA.
Part of the nightmare we have today, the polarized separation of left and right, of conservatives and liberals falls right on the head of the NRA's divisiveness over past decades and Wayne LaPierre's actions in particular. A man who couldn't even use a gun when he started with the NRA. He was a politician seeking power and he found it in the ignorance and power of the NRA's membership and advocates. He has turned the NRA into something that politicians and Americans fear as well as gun manufacturers.
To say like LaPierre said, what if an armed and trained individual was there when a grade school got shot up, is a stupid, monstrous, decisive thing to say. Inflammatory and it got him a lot of donations from those he was trying to inflame. What if a cop where there? How often are cops really where shootings happen? It's a pipe dream. It's ineffectual. It's a lie.
Then the one time the NRA under LaPierre was going to compromise, after the Sandy Hook school shootings, the Gun Owners of America group, and even harder core of gun supporters than the NRA stepped in and subverted what could have been a good thing, saying that if you give in once you set the tempo for losing more. Which is a stupid thing to say, it's a politician's thing to say, a conservative's comment, a professional's comment, showing no real concern for people at all or for the real issues at hand.
The real issue is not guns, it's people. It's not about people's entertainment shooting guns, it's certainly not for the most of us, about food, shooting game, it's not about protecting America from it's own government. It's about people dying. Or not dying, through some common sense and reasonable measures to protect the citizens of this nation, from themselves. The odd and ironic thing about this is that the citizens of this nation are trying as hard as they can not to protect the citizens of this nation, from themselves.
The point is that those who think they need all guns all the time will never feel safe. Nothing will ever be enough. They will never trust the government, a functionary that swings like a pendulum from year to year election to election from right to left and back again. It's apart of democracy. What these people want is not democracy however. It's something else. And it's something we don't want or need as a nation.
It's past time to do something about it, put these people in their place, and push the NRA back into the safety and sport organization it once was, and was what I grew up with when I looked up to the NRA not as a beast trying to wear sheep's clothing but as an advocate for safety and sport, not murder and mayhem and power.
I used to belong to the NRA. I belongs when I was a kid int he 1960s and was proud of it. I haven't belonged to it in many yeas now. Because I dont' even recognize what it is anymore.
Do we need gun control in America? That's not even a question, it's a fact.
Showing posts with label assault weapons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assault weapons. Show all posts
Monday, September 7, 2015
Monday, January 21, 2013
Welcome back, Mr. President - Guns, Guns, Guns
Pres. Obama has been Inaugurated. A second term for the Harvard Law Professor. On an appropriate day, Martin Luther King Day. Especially so, as he was killed by a gun (we'll get to that in a moment).
Let me absorb that a moment. We have now gone from the buffoon from Texas who has pretty much devastated this country, with prior help admittedly, to an actual intellectual. Sigh....
Congratulations to us for staving off the ridiculous right wing extremists, overly conservative conservatives, and the way too pro religion nutzos.
On the other hand, if you are one of those, well, my condolences. Read a book
Now, I am trying to stay away from politics. I'm a writer. I really just want to write. But I see so much stupidity lately in government (especially in the GOP), in our society, it's hard not to speak out sometimes, to get distracted.
So, because today is a special day and we thankfully have an intelligent man once again sworn into office as President, I am going to speak out. Regardless what you think about the President's orientation and policies, that is important, that he is an educated and intelligent individual and not a lame brain jackal. Okay, maybe that's a bit strong, how about, jackass? So, I'm going to say something today, then next week hopefully get back to mere writing issues.
Is life perfect now after one term in office? No, not quite. Have we expected too much of Barack Obama? Yes. And, no. He took on the job, so that's that. But we do need to be reasonable. We've handed the man an almost impossible task and after all, you never can please everyone. Had Bush still been in office, I doubt we'd be in this good a situation. I fear it would have been far worse, so compare now to that sad possibility.
Consider the President's position now on gun control, against that of groups like, the NRA. There's a group for you. Let's ban assault rifles? No? Why? Because we should what? Put assault rifles in schools to protect children from the very few crazies out there who MIGHT attack one of thousands of schools? Isn't THAT crazy?
Actually? Yes, it is.
But but before we consider the Second Amendment, I want to say one thing. We shouldn't be so worried about losing our Second Amendment rights, as we should be worried about losing all our other rights. Privacy rights, legal rights, rights against corporations who have wrangled their positions to have more rights than we do as citizens, which this country was founded upon. That might be the most important right we are losing, protection against big money, monopolies and the definition of what a monopoly now a days, is considered to be.
But Privacy? What little Bush started with taking away our privacy and rights to being arrested with due process and so on, Mr. Obama has apparently not gotten rid of either. I think it's time we address that rape of the constitution. I hope he does address it in his next four years, but I don't have high hopes. Even if he does that, will Congress allow it to happen? But that is another issue. Like, what the Hell is wrong with THOSE people?
Another author friend of mine just mentioned to me an article he read the other day on how the Second Amendment had a lot to do with slavery and the militias that hunted down runaways, etc. Interesting.
From the article The Second Amendment was Ratified to Protect Slavery, by Thom Hartmann:
"But [Patrick] Henry, [George] Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:
Okay, if we ban assault weapons of extended magazines, that isn't the end. There are still other ways. For hundreds of years people knew you had to carry multiple weapons as extended magazines weren't available. Multiple guns, hand guns, shotguns, no guns? Bombs. Or something we haven't thought of yet that, and don't be surprised, some nutzo will eventually come up with a new way to kill.
So, you don't want to lose your right to own an assault rifle?
Some are saying, okay, if you want to shoot one, you should have to go to a licenced firing range where the weapons are protected and locked up when unused. Well, that actually won't stop the crazies. Actually, most gun laws only, as people say, crimp the style of legal, law abiding gun owners.
But here is something to consider. And consider along with this that I am a gun owner. I have been since I was in Jr. High and I had a 20 gauge shotgun (with shells) as well as a .303 British (a rifle type that was powerful enough to have been used many decades ago in Africa to kill elephants). Being so into guns as a kid (gun crazy as she put it) my mother made me join a young people's local, police sanctioned shooting club. She actually called the police department for a recommendation: "If you're going to be so nuts about guns, you'er going to learn about them properly."
That training, made me not be nuts about guns. I still liked them, but I learned they are tools, not toys. Killing tools. Which I learned to turn into a sport. I kill paper not, not critters. Or people. But if the Army ever showed up and handed me a gun and said let's go, we've been invaded, or something, I can definitely hit what I aim at.
I have belonged to firing ranges. I'm ex military. I was headed into a career that would have semi frequently ended me up on the wrong end of a gun as a career. Most likely in a dark alley in a foreign country, somewhere. I own what would be considered an assault weapon, several even. But it's always been my contention that although I enjoy owning and using them, legally, properly, safely, if they were taken from me due to laws, fine. But I won't allow someone to break in and take them, especially if I'm not home. They are protected.
If I ever found myself, after having my guns taken from me, in a situation where I need assault weapons, I'd find another way, should it come to that. See, there are always alternates You just have to be smart, knowledgeable, educated about the things you need to know about. A gun, isn't always the right answer. If things are going wrong, use your mind, talk. And if you do need to start killing people, you don't have to have a gun. It's helpful certainly, but it's not always the way to go.
If you need to kill groups of people, a gun is actually somewhat ineffective. If a revolution starts, if we are invaded, if our country simply fails, or the "zombie apocalypse" hits, there are always other ways. Guns are just the easiest and laziest WMD. Yes, I'd prefer one in an apocalyptic situation. But I'll make due, either way. I am a survivor. Worst case, others will always have them and if they decide to cross my path, that is their own fault for losing their own life and weapons. You have to think ahead, look before you leap in those situations. Always have a plan B.
See. Things are never that bad, in any situation. Till you stop breathing.
Now, all that being said, if we don't have guns, and someone wants to kill groups of people, there are other ways to do it. I'd actually prefer someone open fire on me with a gun, rather than a bomb, or a chemical or biological weapon. Both of which can be produced in the home, by a semi intelligent individual, from information freely available off the internet, or from a library. And let me tell you, a less than average individual who is insanely dedicated to finding a way to kill groups of people, can act as if they were much more intelligent, than they normally are.
Okay, here's a suggestion about gun control. You want an assault weapon? Fine. Then you have to use it. The second amendment says what?
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." (as sent to and ratified by the states and Thomas Jefferson)
Okay then. That second section is dependent upon the first section. Right? So. Get your fat ass out to a militia, and I don't mean Joe Bob's militia, no getting high, or drunk. Guns, are serious business. I mean a designated, functional, real ass militia run by the military, designated by the military, for the people and essentially by the people, but the real, functional people (trained professionally) who know what they are doing. Which is, the military.
Militia, should have Military Advisers, just like third world countries get from us, Advisers with teeth though, authority. After all this isn't a third world country, it is OUR country. And if you're not up to snuff pal, if you don't have appropriate attitude (yes, attitude), or security at your house to store your assault weapons, then you lose them. Oh, you can still own them, you just can't house them, because you have been deemed ineffective in their being secured.
See, what is intrinsic in that amendment are several issues related to those words used, their meanings and the functionality of those words and meanings. A bunch of yahoos playing soldier (and drinking beers) is not a "well regulated" militia. See? Get it? Comprende?
Think about it.
It just dawned on me how many have no clue what this really meant back at the birth of the nation, or what that translates into now. Things change. $100,000 back then is like $6 million, now. Possibly like the meaning of the word, "Militia", as I indicated above in that article reference from my friend.
If they had these kinds of assault weapons back then, and if people were shooting them off at public houses and Inns killing people, this amendment would have been rewritten 'tout de suite' (you know, toot sweet), just so you could finish your beer before having to deal with whipping out your own assault rifle. See, you don't get to have rights to WMD's without appropriate justification and capability and that is stated right there within the amendment: "a well regulated militia".
Consider too that back then, a WMD was multiple men with weapons. It took, multiple weapons to be a weapon of mass destruction, not just one. Now, with assault weapons, it really only takes one weapon, one assault rifle, to be a WMD.
People think that means (whatever they want to think it means typically) "well regulated" is from, without. But it also, or more likely means from, within. And that means, training. So guess what? Grab your assault rifle and get ready for some getting yelled at and, actually hitting some targets and, making it over some terrain to practice what it is really like to be in a modern day militia.
One might consider that with our greater understanding of things and technology, this would mean a Military Reserve Unit.
But it doesn't have to.
Just enough training to make these weapons safer in the public arena and secured from all the nutzos who are using them inappropriately (or too appropriately, depending on how you view it). And, if you're nuts, your Sergeant, I guarantee, is going to see it out on the practice fields. At that point: "You can just leave your weapon(s) at the armory till we look further into this.... Pal."
Anyway....
Obviously I don't think the Pres. went far enough on his gun control suggestions. Okay, executive order. Or whatever.
And much of this is a moot point anyway. Because what we need isn't so much gun control, but a fundamental change in our entire society.
Why, if I had some serious killing weapons in my room as a child (no that isn't the issue), why didn't I ever use them to kill anyone?
Maybe because I had the same angst as people do now a days. I just didn't believe in using a gun to exercise my frustrations. Why? I think partly it has to do with having taken away too much control from children. That explains our children turning their frustrations inward to themselves ("cutting", etc.), rather than allowing them to spill out and be seen, through acting out in their obvious social behaviors. Now things are hidden. Till it's too late. They tend to react inwardly, till they can't take it anymore and the explode outward, into the public.
Yes, that is all theory and it is an argument I've given in prior blogs and is for another time, not really for here.
But ask yourself, what has changed in our society? We need to change how we think, at a very basic level. We need to think, to consider how we raise our children, how we show them to view their world, our entire world. Who we are.
You see WE, need to change. As a People.
But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Just, think about it.
And congratulations once again, to President Obama, and to us.
Let me absorb that a moment. We have now gone from the buffoon from Texas who has pretty much devastated this country, with prior help admittedly, to an actual intellectual. Sigh....
Congratulations to us for staving off the ridiculous right wing extremists, overly conservative conservatives, and the way too pro religion nutzos.
On the other hand, if you are one of those, well, my condolences. Read a book
 |
| Oh, come on! Just having a bit of fun with this.... |
So, because today is a special day and we thankfully have an intelligent man once again sworn into office as President, I am going to speak out. Regardless what you think about the President's orientation and policies, that is important, that he is an educated and intelligent individual and not a lame brain jackal. Okay, maybe that's a bit strong, how about, jackass? So, I'm going to say something today, then next week hopefully get back to mere writing issues.
Is life perfect now after one term in office? No, not quite. Have we expected too much of Barack Obama? Yes. And, no. He took on the job, so that's that. But we do need to be reasonable. We've handed the man an almost impossible task and after all, you never can please everyone. Had Bush still been in office, I doubt we'd be in this good a situation. I fear it would have been far worse, so compare now to that sad possibility.
Consider the President's position now on gun control, against that of groups like, the NRA. There's a group for you. Let's ban assault rifles? No? Why? Because we should what? Put assault rifles in schools to protect children from the very few crazies out there who MIGHT attack one of thousands of schools? Isn't THAT crazy?
Actually? Yes, it is.
But but before we consider the Second Amendment, I want to say one thing. We shouldn't be so worried about losing our Second Amendment rights, as we should be worried about losing all our other rights. Privacy rights, legal rights, rights against corporations who have wrangled their positions to have more rights than we do as citizens, which this country was founded upon. That might be the most important right we are losing, protection against big money, monopolies and the definition of what a monopoly now a days, is considered to be.
But Privacy? What little Bush started with taking away our privacy and rights to being arrested with due process and so on, Mr. Obama has apparently not gotten rid of either. I think it's time we address that rape of the constitution. I hope he does address it in his next four years, but I don't have high hopes. Even if he does that, will Congress allow it to happen? But that is another issue. Like, what the Hell is wrong with THOSE people?
Another author friend of mine just mentioned to me an article he read the other day on how the Second Amendment had a lot to do with slavery and the militias that hunted down runaways, etc. Interesting.
From the article The Second Amendment was Ratified to Protect Slavery, by Thom Hartmann:
"But [Patrick] Henry, [George] Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.""Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as "persons" by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren."
Okay, if we ban assault weapons of extended magazines, that isn't the end. There are still other ways. For hundreds of years people knew you had to carry multiple weapons as extended magazines weren't available. Multiple guns, hand guns, shotguns, no guns? Bombs. Or something we haven't thought of yet that, and don't be surprised, some nutzo will eventually come up with a new way to kill.
So, you don't want to lose your right to own an assault rifle?
Some are saying, okay, if you want to shoot one, you should have to go to a licenced firing range where the weapons are protected and locked up when unused. Well, that actually won't stop the crazies. Actually, most gun laws only, as people say, crimp the style of legal, law abiding gun owners.
But here is something to consider. And consider along with this that I am a gun owner. I have been since I was in Jr. High and I had a 20 gauge shotgun (with shells) as well as a .303 British (a rifle type that was powerful enough to have been used many decades ago in Africa to kill elephants). Being so into guns as a kid (gun crazy as she put it) my mother made me join a young people's local, police sanctioned shooting club. She actually called the police department for a recommendation: "If you're going to be so nuts about guns, you'er going to learn about them properly."
That training, made me not be nuts about guns. I still liked them, but I learned they are tools, not toys. Killing tools. Which I learned to turn into a sport. I kill paper not, not critters. Or people. But if the Army ever showed up and handed me a gun and said let's go, we've been invaded, or something, I can definitely hit what I aim at.
I have belonged to firing ranges. I'm ex military. I was headed into a career that would have semi frequently ended me up on the wrong end of a gun as a career. Most likely in a dark alley in a foreign country, somewhere. I own what would be considered an assault weapon, several even. But it's always been my contention that although I enjoy owning and using them, legally, properly, safely, if they were taken from me due to laws, fine. But I won't allow someone to break in and take them, especially if I'm not home. They are protected.
If I ever found myself, after having my guns taken from me, in a situation where I need assault weapons, I'd find another way, should it come to that. See, there are always alternates You just have to be smart, knowledgeable, educated about the things you need to know about. A gun, isn't always the right answer. If things are going wrong, use your mind, talk. And if you do need to start killing people, you don't have to have a gun. It's helpful certainly, but it's not always the way to go.
If you need to kill groups of people, a gun is actually somewhat ineffective. If a revolution starts, if we are invaded, if our country simply fails, or the "zombie apocalypse" hits, there are always other ways. Guns are just the easiest and laziest WMD. Yes, I'd prefer one in an apocalyptic situation. But I'll make due, either way. I am a survivor. Worst case, others will always have them and if they decide to cross my path, that is their own fault for losing their own life and weapons. You have to think ahead, look before you leap in those situations. Always have a plan B.
See. Things are never that bad, in any situation. Till you stop breathing.
Now, all that being said, if we don't have guns, and someone wants to kill groups of people, there are other ways to do it. I'd actually prefer someone open fire on me with a gun, rather than a bomb, or a chemical or biological weapon. Both of which can be produced in the home, by a semi intelligent individual, from information freely available off the internet, or from a library. And let me tell you, a less than average individual who is insanely dedicated to finding a way to kill groups of people, can act as if they were much more intelligent, than they normally are.
Okay, here's a suggestion about gun control. You want an assault weapon? Fine. Then you have to use it. The second amendment says what?
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." (as sent to and ratified by the states and Thomas Jefferson)
Okay then. That second section is dependent upon the first section. Right? So. Get your fat ass out to a militia, and I don't mean Joe Bob's militia, no getting high, or drunk. Guns, are serious business. I mean a designated, functional, real ass militia run by the military, designated by the military, for the people and essentially by the people, but the real, functional people (trained professionally) who know what they are doing. Which is, the military.
Militia, should have Military Advisers, just like third world countries get from us, Advisers with teeth though, authority. After all this isn't a third world country, it is OUR country. And if you're not up to snuff pal, if you don't have appropriate attitude (yes, attitude), or security at your house to store your assault weapons, then you lose them. Oh, you can still own them, you just can't house them, because you have been deemed ineffective in their being secured.
See, what is intrinsic in that amendment are several issues related to those words used, their meanings and the functionality of those words and meanings. A bunch of yahoos playing soldier (and drinking beers) is not a "well regulated" militia. See? Get it? Comprende?
Think about it.
It just dawned on me how many have no clue what this really meant back at the birth of the nation, or what that translates into now. Things change. $100,000 back then is like $6 million, now. Possibly like the meaning of the word, "Militia", as I indicated above in that article reference from my friend.
If they had these kinds of assault weapons back then, and if people were shooting them off at public houses and Inns killing people, this amendment would have been rewritten 'tout de suite' (you know, toot sweet), just so you could finish your beer before having to deal with whipping out your own assault rifle. See, you don't get to have rights to WMD's without appropriate justification and capability and that is stated right there within the amendment: "a well regulated militia".
Consider too that back then, a WMD was multiple men with weapons. It took, multiple weapons to be a weapon of mass destruction, not just one. Now, with assault weapons, it really only takes one weapon, one assault rifle, to be a WMD.
People think that means (whatever they want to think it means typically) "well regulated" is from, without. But it also, or more likely means from, within. And that means, training. So guess what? Grab your assault rifle and get ready for some getting yelled at and, actually hitting some targets and, making it over some terrain to practice what it is really like to be in a modern day militia.
One might consider that with our greater understanding of things and technology, this would mean a Military Reserve Unit.
But it doesn't have to.
Just enough training to make these weapons safer in the public arena and secured from all the nutzos who are using them inappropriately (or too appropriately, depending on how you view it). And, if you're nuts, your Sergeant, I guarantee, is going to see it out on the practice fields. At that point: "You can just leave your weapon(s) at the armory till we look further into this.... Pal."
Anyway....
Obviously I don't think the Pres. went far enough on his gun control suggestions. Okay, executive order. Or whatever.
And much of this is a moot point anyway. Because what we need isn't so much gun control, but a fundamental change in our entire society.
Why, if I had some serious killing weapons in my room as a child (no that isn't the issue), why didn't I ever use them to kill anyone?
Maybe because I had the same angst as people do now a days. I just didn't believe in using a gun to exercise my frustrations. Why? I think partly it has to do with having taken away too much control from children. That explains our children turning their frustrations inward to themselves ("cutting", etc.), rather than allowing them to spill out and be seen, through acting out in their obvious social behaviors. Now things are hidden. Till it's too late. They tend to react inwardly, till they can't take it anymore and the explode outward, into the public.
Yes, that is all theory and it is an argument I've given in prior blogs and is for another time, not really for here.
But ask yourself, what has changed in our society? We need to change how we think, at a very basic level. We need to think, to consider how we raise our children, how we show them to view their world, our entire world. Who we are.
You see WE, need to change. As a People.
But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Just, think about it.
And congratulations once again, to President Obama, and to us.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
The NRA sure seems nuts. Surprised?
Is the NRA's Wayne LaPierre insane. Or just self serving? It is after all, his job.
Add armed guards to all our schools? We can't even afford to pay our teachers a decent wage, now we need armed guards? Guards who you know won't be the cream of the crop, let's face it. Have you SEEN the TSA? Putting armed guards in thousands of schools would boost the NRA's credibility and boost the gun industry by quite a bit. But it wouldn't protect all that much. Most of those schools would never see an incident and it would be a huge waste of money and resources.
Wouldn't it make more sense, along with whatever else we decide upon to correct this rather small but very noticeable national trend of mass murder, to reinforce the schoolrooms so that they can be locked down when something happens, securing the children, teachers and administrators from attack and locking off or in, the perpetrators? Wouldn't that create jobs? Jobs that would begin and then be over but not go on forever like armed security?
Perhaps having a locked down gun in every school and one or two members of schools to have training access to use that weapon should something ever happen, before police show up, might be a reasonable thing.
The NRA has called their suggested program, the "Shield Program". Isn't that what I'm suggesting here? To give schools the ability to engage a shield if an when it is necessary? Isn't this far more aligned with being a "shield" than the NRA's suggestion of bringing more guns into the schools?
Consider, how often does this happen to schools? How many schools are there? This is not a massive thing, it's effects on us emotionally is massive. According to the National Center for Education Statistics via NPR, March 16, shows that in 1993 and 1994 there were 40 homicides each year in elementary and high schools. Guess the insanity of Junior High schools keeps most crazies out of those institutions for reasons of competition? Or maybe they are grouping Jr. High and High schools?
 |
| Does this look like an epidemic? |
No, I don't think we need to arm our schools, or our society. Yes, we have the right to keep and bear arms. Work it out. But in an intelligent way. We need more jobs right? Which makes more sense, hiring armed guards, or putting laborers to work on schools?
Then there is legislation. Do we really need assault weapons? Well, perhaps it's our right, but just as we don't or shouldn't have the right to own anti tank weapons, we probably should not have full assault weaponry. Perhaps we can with limitations. For a long, long time it's been legal to have fully automatic weapons but the license for it is very expensive, or used to be. You can own a suppressor/silencer, but you need the licensing. Not every Tom, Dick and Idiot needs to be owning one.
Of course, you can make your own and most of what's going on subverts gun laws so how cracking down on guns legally will keep illegal usage down, I'm not so sure. Yes, less guns around is less ability to use them. But it seems that a lot of these killings (and most are in inner cities but no one seems to care about that, just when children are kills, so if you'd paid attention sooner to the people you DON'T care about, maybe your kids wouldn't be getting killed now?
And I think that is a relevant point. It's not the guns that are killing people. It's the attitude and the culture of this nation that is doing it, or at least, allowing it to be possible. Even, if you think about it, reasonable Reasonable in that sense that you can reason why this might happen, not in the sense that it's a reasonable thing to allow, or put up with.
So, should we do something? Yes. But let's make it something that will functionally do something and not just waste money. Going to war with Iraq was doing something about 9/11 but was it the most functional thing to do considering the situation? Hell, no. Going into Afghanistan was and we did that within a few weeks and we kicked some serious ass, but almost no one knew that, because we wanted more pain on the other side. What other side? We didn't really care, we wanted to lash out and old Bush Jr. was happy to help out and look good.
Like now, we want to lash out, but does it matter if we do anything reasonable, or functional? Or should we just have a bunch of knee jerk reactions to what feels good to do?
Let's do something to solve the problem. Because whatever that is, it probably won't feel good, or good enough, but it could be the right thing to do.
More guns, isn't the solution to guns. Those controlling the guns, is where the real issue lay, and no one wants to deal with that. I'm actually getting exhausted repeating this line over and over again to people. Because, no one is listening.
They just want to last out and hope that stops these things from happening. Well, guess what? It won't. Because you see, you actually have to do something that is useful, to stop things that you don't want to happen, from happening.
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