Whilst reading my blog comments and perusing my Facebook page, Twitter, et al, I noticed a few more references to yesterday’s horrific events at Sandy Hook elementary school.
It seems to be the sort of thing that has become popular with the crazies who own a multitude of guns. This particular nut had two 9mm hand guns and what looks like a “sniper” rifle.
Someone on Twitter posted a Twitpic of the sniper rifle and asked the question, “What does your average citizen need this type of gun for?” The “old” me would have said, for deer hunting of course or other such big game. The new me says, “Yes, why would you need that type of gun?”
More accurately, why do you need two 9mm handguns and a .223 sniper rifle? Yes, the constitution states that all Americans have the right to bear arms. But do we need an arsenal of guns to protect our hearth and home? Is the right to bear arms for our personal defence inclusive of an armoury of weapons for both long-range and short-range protection?
It seems to me, in this day and age of computerization, that we have the ability to track and trace applications for weapons beyond the residence test. You will excuse me if I am not up on the more recent requirements necessary to purchase firearms in America. The last gun I bought was in 1981. But back then you only had to have a valid driver’s license to prove your age and that you had been a resident of that particular state for over six months.
Since that long time ago, we’ve become more computerized. There are a plethora of data bases out there with our names on them. It should be possible for someone to notice when an individual starts buying more than a couple of weapons.
I am not sure if that will help to “keep a lid” on the amount of nut cases out there who collect guns for their own personal Armageddon or apocalyptic shoot out, but it couldn’t hurt. At least then, we would have the chance to ask, before allowing a further purchase of weaponry, as to why they need it.
Answers in triplicate and no misspellings, please.
We’ve had at least two horrific events in a public place in America in this year alone. A movie theatre and an elementary school, please forgive me if I’ve missed anyone who lost a loved one in another mass shooting. I’m not overly familiar with all the news, just the ones that strike a chord in me.
There has been a rise in the number of school shooting in the last decade. Who can forget the massacre of the Amish children in a small school-house in 2006? There are more – a disturbing amount more – cases of young children paying the price of one (or more) man’s madness. Sadly so many more that I can’t remember them all.
There must be some way, besides adopting the British form of gun control, which can help to prevent this type of thing happening in the future. I suppose you could say that if one or more of the teachers could have been armed and possibly could have blasted the gunman out of his shoes, but do we really want our children to receive their education at the OK Corral? But that is a lot of could‘s with no shoulds to balance them out. So what should be done?
I still believe that if the government decide to pass any sort of “extreme” gun control that American‘s have the right to bear arms. That should never change. But I also believe that the right to bear arms does not mean the right to own a huge amount of weapons. Unless you are a “survivalist” the average family doesn’t need a huge stockpile of weapons and ammunition.
But that is not what this blog post is about. The issue of gun control will rage on until enough innocents pay the price for the lackadaisical attitude about weapons from the government.
This post is about a group of children and unarmed adults who were massacred in a school on Friday. When I say down to write this post I had a prayer jump in my conscious thought. It was the first prayer I was taught as a child, it is possibly the first prayer a lot of children learn.
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“Amen.”
I think that perhaps the prayer could be changed. A little something to help kid prepare for life today in the educational playground of death that could await them when they depart the bus at school.
“Now I take me off to School.”
“Lord please protect me from some gun-toting fool.”
“If I am shot before I leave, please help my folks learn how to grieve.”
“Amen.”
This is not meant to be funny or poke fun at what children have to face at school each day. This is not intended in any way to make light of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School yesterday – 14/12/2012, just eleven days before Christmas.
What this is intended to do, is to show just how dangerous it is out there for our little ones. We cannot protect them when they aren’t at home, neither can the police or other public services. I think that it’s time for everyone to rethink what is going on in the world and change their way of seeing things.
We need to take control before the madmen do. Let’s keep the lunatics under the control of the asylum and not let them run it.
Amen.
Related articles
- Thoughts on the American Second Ammendment (the Right to Bear Arms) (sleaf62.wordpress.com)
- At Least 27 Dead in Connecticut Elementary School Massacre [Updating] (jezebel.com)
- School Shooting at Elementary School in Connecticut (amcpress.wordpress.com)
- Obama must now make gun control his legacy (newstatesman.com)
- Gunman’s mother owned weapons used in Connecticut school massacre (usnews.nbcnews.com)
- 30 Murdered at Connecticut Elementary School (thesamerowdycrowd.wordpress.com)
- Talking About Guns Isn’t as Simple as It Looks (denver.cbslocal.com)
- Family of Shooting Victims in Colorado Seek Gun Control in Aftermath of Connecticut School Tragedy (kron4.com)
I agree.
I have to think that creeps like this shooter are among those going to Shepherd Book’s “special Hell.” Nobody in these types of massacres ever truly deserves to die, but when it involves children it just makes you sick.
No offence taken at all! As I told my daughter, guns are made to kill things. Animals and/or people. I’ve never been one to advocate shooting to wound someone, that’s only in the movies. If you have to defend yourself or your family you shoot and keep shooting until the threat is gone. Whether that threat is a 4 legged or 2 legged animal. I have never lost anyone to a deliberate act of violence and I hope I never do. Having said that though, I do believe that the “gun” culture in the states is very powerful and all to persuasive to a lot of mentally unstable people. I do realise that it’s hard to see the other side of the argument when you weren’t raised in the environment of having the right to bear arms for protect of hearth, home, self and family. In this country we are not supposed to defend ourselves or our family. It is illegal to even own pepper spray for crying out loud! Having worked as a Prison Officer for almost ten years, I’ve seen the underbelly of society and it is frightening to think that the authorities don’t want people to defend themselves. The police are an “after the fact” service plain and simple. I don’t want my family protected after their dead or seriously injured. I don’t think I’ll ever change the way I feel about that one.
The difference for me, as an outsider looking in, is that gun death is rarely an accident but a deliberate act of violence against another human being. While there is no denying that some percentage of fire or motor vehicle deaths are caused bythe direct intention to do harm, I imagine the vast majority are “accidental” in the strictest sense of the word.
Also – I notice your stat is for “mass shootings” – a more accurate representation would be to compare all US shooting deaths to the fire & car stats, would it not.
I’d argue too; you don’t ban cars due to the deaths they cause because they are primarily a tool for transport, you don’t ban fire as it is a natural source of heat/light. You could ban guns because all they are is a tool for death.
This, of course, is a uniquely British point of view. I’ve never had a Constitutional right to bear arms and therefore cannot appreciate the cultural value it represents. What is always interesting to me, as a bit of an amateur student of American culture, is that these type of events were, up until Belgium last year, a uniquely American phenomenon. My Swiss Fther-In-Law had both his service pistol & rifle in the house, and I understand all National Servicemen in Switzerland do too, placing at least 2 guns in nearly every household in Switzerland. However, proportionally, there are statistically less gun deaths there than the US. The difference is, and nobody seems to say it, that there is something inherently wrong with the cultural attitude towards guns in the US; an attitude that exists in the national psychology that I am simply not equipped or qualified to express. Also, many gun owners in the US, unlike yourself, have no military background or formal training in gun safety, neither do they use them for hunting sport. The gun is owned as a misguided tool of “self-defense” that backfires or, like the recent shootings, were acquired for diabolical activity such as recent events.
I’m very interested in your view on this Mike as an American, and I hope I don’t offend with my comments, I just find it a concept very hard to understand from my British perspective and relish the opportunity to bounce it of a US national…
Unfortunately I disagree, take the following statistics: 100 people PER DAY die in car accidents (source).
2,640 people PER YEAR die from house fires (source).
167 people died from mass shootings… in the last DECADE (source). I think that mass shootings (regardless of the number of deaths or injuries involved) tend to be more horrifying to the public in terms of innocents being slaughtered, but the amount is not substantive enough to quantify the banning of guns for the average citizen. In my honest opinion. But thank you for sharing your thoughts, I’m sure that if I lost someone to a mass shooting my ideas could change. Still, that’s why I love having a comment section. It allows me to see how others feel. Cheers mate!
The Constitutional right to bear arms comes at too high a price.
That’s really sweet.
Sure! I’ll have to head back & see what nature these questions are! Cheers mate for both stopping by and for sharing your thoughts! 😀
Mike: We’re all in shock over this tragedy. But I sense that it is some sort of tipping point that in days and weeks to come might lead to reasonable action (not just talk) to begin to stop the madness. As an American, I appreciate reading your viewpoint as the “madmen” shout very loudly over here.
I also want to thank you for dropping by thesamerowdycrowd.com. I left you some questions there, if you care to comment on them.
Amen.
My pleasure, Mike
What a lovely thought from such a chaotic and horrid business. That children should learn about death and the fact that it can visit them when they are so young is a harsh lesson to learn. I hope that God has a lot of milk and cookies. Enough to keep them going till they reunite with their loved ones. Cheers mate for sharing that.
Mike, I cried for 30 minutes when I heard what happened at Sandy Hook. I’m a fairly tough son of a gun but I just bawled like a baby. What helped me get over was this dumb little thing that I thought to myself. I imagined God all of a sudden seeing all those children standing before Him and thinking “I’m going to need more milk and cookies.”