It's been ages since I've written a blog post regarding religion or politics. I've purposely done that because those issues tend to ruffle too many feathers and quite frankly, I haven't felt like reading a lot of other people's bitching and moaning lately. What a selfish wench I am! Although we all like to believe we're 100% correct regarding our political ideology and spiritual beliefs, I'm intelligent enough to know that rarely is one side completely right about anything. The exception to that rule is the dogma surrounding Mildredism. Mildred, after all, is right about everything!
Today is the day I'm going to break my dry spell and jump back into the insanity of public opinion. One issue I'd like to weigh in on is the increased gun violence in the United States. Without stepping on anyone's toes or Second Amendment rights, I really believe something concrete needs to be done to curb the violence. Too many innocent people are being slaughtered daily. I listen closely to all the rhetoric surrounding this hotbed issue, but all I really hear appears to be are confirmations of an irrational need to be heavily armed and a quite twisted relationship between weapons and their owners. Instead of people focusing on a very real problem and having a rational discussion about it so a consensus can be reached, all I hear are people wailing about their guns being taken away from them. To that I say BOO FUCKING HOO!
Perhaps when the Constitution was first written a need to be armed was a truly legitimate need, but it's an entirely different world now than it was then. At that time people had to hunt to provide food to feed their families. Veganism wasn't the going rage back then. People were meat and potato connoisseurs not bean sprout and tofu gurus. Back then guns were a person's only defense in the savage environment they were settling. Today fewer people hunt to feed their families and those who do hunt, do it more for sport than for dietary need. Those who chose to hunt and it is a choice because meat is readily available for sale at any store near where they live certainly can do so without doing it with a semi-automatic firearm. Wouldn't hunting be more like hunting if it were done with bows instead of guns? Just a thought!
Having a fully equipped arsenal of weapons seems a little bizarre to me and just a wee bit on the paranoid side. Maybe I feel this way because I've never felt a need to own a gun. As many times as I have attempted to discuss this issue no one has ever adequately explained to me any rational reasons why people have a need for weapons in this day and age. What I generally get are loud tirades that come off sounding more like something an emotionally unstable person might rant. And oh boy, that's the kind of person I want armed and ready for anything! Today's savage environment doesn't include marauding bands of Native Americans or outlaws who rape, plunder and pillage. The savage situations of today are school shootings and crimes of passion. Could the answer be as simple as taking all weapons away except those used by law enforcement and the military? Perhaps if that was done, the violence might vanish. Just a thought!
So what's it going to take to turn the violence around? Any thoughts on the subject? Other industrialized countries don't seem have the amount of gun violence we have here. Are we not doing something right? What's their formula for a relatively peaceful co-existence? Are we just a nation of spoiled children who want what we want when we want it regardless of the consequences of our actions? Have people become incapable of compromise? Has our gun violence gotten so out of hand that it can't be fixed and why does the NRA seem to wield so much power? Who made them Grand Poobah of Gunslingers? These are just some of the questions floating around in my bleeding heart liberal brain.
* Repost from June 25, 2014
I really don't understand the NEED for guns.
ReplyDeleteWe have more gun violence than we did - and I blame our tendency to adopt pieces of your culture. And we still have very little gun violence - which is fine by me. After a massacre a few years back our conservative government of the time severely limited access to guns. Fine by me.
And I understand that in your country the people killed by guns are most likely to be family members. Coming in too late or too early, or guns going off 'unexpectedly'.
It is a cultural thing I suppose - but I don't understand it.
It's sad, but true! Sometimes the United States is emulated and mimicked for the wrong reasons.
DeleteYes, often times the deaths are of family members, but in the past several years the amount of school shootings and shootings in other very public places like malls, fast food restaurants and movie theatres where many people are gunned down has increased. It's just insane that nothing is being done to help correct the problem...no one seems to be trying to find out why this problem is increasing. The fact that nothing is being done scares me as much as the violence itself. It's like an actual approval is being given by doing nothing and that distresses me.
I don't think we have as much gun violence in Canada as you have in the States but we do have some and quite often it appears to be returning veterans who are suffering from PTSD. We also have the odd incident of gang shootings.
ReplyDeleteNot a big fan of having guns in the home.
Not a big fan of having only law enforcement and the military toting guns.
Not sure what the answer is but the more people putting their minds to the solution the better. Thanks for stepping up and speaking out.
I don't know what the answer is either but do think some time and effort needs to be taken to find a solution. Doing something is better than doing nothing.
DeleteAfter writing that about having the military and law enforcement being the only people who should have weapons I immediately questioned it, but I didn't remove it. I guess I wanted it to be food for thought. The solution probably lies somewhere in the center...whatever and wherever that is.
DeleteInstead of trying to prevent more tragedies after Newtown, some states are now allowing people to carry unconcealed semi-automatic weapons anywhere and everywhere. Chipotle Restaurants are "asking" people not to bring them inside, but I doubt that will stop these gun zealots. There are gun incidents in schools every week, children are afraid to go to school, we worry when going to movies and shopping centers, and the beat goes on. This is not the country that I or my children grew up in, but, unfortunately, it is my grandchildren's reality.
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard on the news that people were being allowed carry their weapons into restaurants, etc I thought I was hearing it wrong. What are people thinking? Is there really a need to do that? I look at some of the gun toting people and they look as unbalanced as the people doing the shooting.... I just don't know where this is headed but I don't think it's in a good direction.
DeleteI fear the world is going gun-loco, Mildred. Even the Swiss Army --which long and successfully defended its country on bicycles, with little red-handled pocket knives-- is modernizing with firepower and tanks. I don't know the reason, but bet it has to do with increased numbers of international belligerents, like the U.S., barging around the world after terrorists who always seem to hide in places with LOTS OF OIL. Gives everybody the jumps. Jumpy people buy guns.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be great if things so complex could be solved easily? If jumpy people buy guns, I think a Rx for valium should be given with the purchase of each gun!
DeleteNo arguments. When you first posted this or now. And for goodness sake. The second amendment was an AMENDMENT. It isn't irrevocable...
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely!
DeleteWhen i was a child, i went to a summer camp and was taught riflery. I know how to handle a gun, although i have not chosen to do so in many years. When i did, it was for target shooting only.
ReplyDeleteI believe it is possible to have guns for target shooting, skeet, and hunting (some people i know still put most of the meat on their table from what they take during hunting season each year) and do it in a sane, rational manner that does not allow weapons in the hands of nut jobs.
We just have to develop the will and backbone to do so.
I am definitely not against gun ownership. I am against gun violence and I don't think assault weapons should be in the hands of ordinary citizens...just my opinion.
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