Like many other American “traditions” Black Friday has come to the United Kingdom and the PS4 Launch started at midnight in Game stores across the country coinciding with the “new” marketing tradition. While many publications in the UK have questioned the wisdom of English retailers aping American stores and their “official” Christmas shopping period, gamers came out in force Thursday night to line up for the Sony next gen console launch.
Sandy Hook trauma. Photo courtesy of International Business Times.
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.
Since the Aurora shooting (I’m refusing to refer to it by the press moniker of ‘Midnight Shootings) the nation has been up in arms (pun intended) about the issue of gun control and certain rabid liberals who just want to take away every American‘s firearms.
It is the ‘woolly headed’ thinking of these liberal ‘peace-niks’ that drives me to distraction. These are the same sort of people who instilled a deep-seated phobia about firearms and their place in modern society in the United Kingdom. And the argument that the constitution’s assertion that American’s have the right to own and use firearms for their own “self defence” is not really a right is ridiculous.
The Supreme Court upheld the notion that the constitution did guarantee American’s the right to own and use firearms in 2008. With the government’s overt and not so overt (Can you say Fast & Furious, kids? I knew you could) opposition to individuals having access to guns and their determination to control every honest citizens ability to use guns, I think we are in for yet another fight.
The government need to read more history. American history. I won’t go as far back as the War of Independence that we would not have had a chance in if it weren’t for private citizens and their guns.
No, in terms of history I will just say three words. Remember the Alamo.
Every American remembers the legend and the myth of the Alamo’s desperate last stand against the military might of the Mexican government. But has everyone forgotten what helped start Texas (that was part of Mexico) in their move to rebel against the government?
Gun control.
The Mexican government decided to put into practise a gun control law that prohibited citizens owning their own firearms. Admittedly this was in a time when the gun was necessary to these ‘homesteaders’ for personal protection in a time when the Apache and other sundry tribes were still preying on these intruding white people.
The attempted confiscation of arms and the punitive measures taken against the ‘law breakers’ started what would soon escalate into a full scale military event that would see Mexico lose a part of their own country. And it all started with a sense of moral outrage felt by the Americans who were told to give up their guns
That that sense of moral outrage and entitlement has not gone away. The country itself may be more ‘civilised’ and we might have more law and order with a modern police force to help keep things ‘safe.’ But the police themselves admit that they are not in a position to provide protection for the average citizen.
The police are, by the very nature of their job, an ‘after-the-fact’ organisation. They arrive at the crime scene after the fact. Just the phrase ‘crime scene’ proves that the actual crime has already occurred. The police have stated that a well armed, well trained citizen can provide better protection for themselves than they, the police, can.
In case you missed it, the most important part of the above paragraph was the “well armed, well trained” bit. Instead of wasting everyone’s time trying to set up a legislation that, like the United Kingdom, will only allow the police and criminals to be armed, they should instead set up a program that requires gun owners be educated.
Proper lessons for new gun owners or for existing owners a requirement to prove they know how, why and when to properly use a gun. Whether it’s for hunting or self defense, a little education could go a long way. It’s been proven time and again that the current system is not capable of stopping the world’s nutters buying guns and using them on innocent people.
I’m not advocating turning American streets into a variation of the O.K. Corral with shoot-outs at noon, but I am saying we need to be very careful in disarming honest citizens. Because I can tell you, the next step will be losing your right to defend yourself or your family at all.
I’ve lived in the United Kingdom off and on from 1982 to 1990 and after that I’ve lived here full time (I’m a dual citizen) and I’ve seen first hand what living in a country that practises the total disarming of it’s law abiding citizenry is like..
In the United Kingdom you cannot even own a knife if the blade it too long. You are also very limited in defending yourself. Woe betide the person who uses too much violence to save themselves or their family from personal injury or death. I will just point out the the ‘anti-gun, anti-violence’ attitude and legislation forbids the use of tasers, spray cannisters (tear gas, pepper spray) and causing any sort of injury to the criminal who is attempting to murder, rob, rape or assault you.
Protecting yourself too vigorously will land you in court. You can, then depending of the circumstances, find yourself a guest at Her Majesty’s convenience. At the very least you could be fined a substantial amount of money for daring to protect your family and their (or your) safety.
Self defence is frowned on in this country. Violence, whether it is of a protective nature or not, is bad. And that will be the next step. Because the real disturbing truth is this. Gun control is just the first step in the government controlling you and trying to turn you into a cog in their mechanism.
Where they call allthe shots and you have no right to personally insure you are safe in your own city, town, or home.
Re-enactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone, Arizona (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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