I'm not a big fan of sharing my opinions on things that will ultimately result in death threats & rude comments. However, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, I strongly feel the need to address it. (Because that is MY 1st Amendment right.)
I'd like to start off by saying, my heart breaks for these small children who lost their lives senselessly. For their families. For the community. For the survivors.
A blogger friend made weighed in yesterday. Deborah Cruz is a good blogger friend of mine who lives in the computer. She's an amazing writer, mother, & wife. You can read her blog, The TRUTH About Motherhood and her specific post HERE. (See Deb, I'm still plugging you even though we disagree!) ;)
{Image compliments of The TRUTH About Motherhood}
I'm a card carrying member of the NRA. I have a lifetime concealed weapon permit. If some sick bastard ever got into my home....I'd not only reach for MY gun, but I'd pull the trigger without hesitation. I want to be equipped to protect my family. Be it at home, in a shopping mall, or a movie theater. If I could sit next to my kids in their classrooms each day with my gun, I would.
Many (not THAT many, Mom) years ago when my Mom, Aunt, & Uncles were just small children-They were home with their Mom-(my beloved Granny) when an intruder made an almost successful attempt into their home. My Grandpa was in another county working. Granny gathered up her kids, loaded my Grandpa's shotgun and fired off a round as a warning. (Or she may have just been a bad aim. I'll have to ask her to clarify on that for me.) The man fled on foot through the woods. He was not shot, (unfortunately) but he was scared shitless I'm sure. I shudder to think what might have happened had there not been a gun in the house.
"You can tell me it's your right to bear arms. I say no, it isn't." -Deborah Cruz
But actually yes...yes it is my right.
"The simple fact of the matter is that guns kill people--" -Deborah Cruz
Really the simple fact of the matter is that crazy, mentally ill, psychotic, evil PEOPLE, kill people.
So what can we do? Take away MY guns? YOUR guns? Make them all illegal? Where does it stop? When they take away Deb and my 1st Amendment rights? That way neither of us will be allowed to have an opinion. Then that can open the door to shut down our 13th Amendment- which abolishes slavery.
I'm not okay with any of that.
Do you know I pay roughly $250 for my daughter's textbook 'rental fee each year?' Multiply that by the 2500 students at her school. That's about $625,000 per year, give or take. But you mean to tell me that every school can't hire ARMED security? Install metal detectors? Lock down buildings during school hours? Show identification at the locked doors? HIRE ARMED SECURITY?
I call bullshit. Sadly, I don't run the country.
In other news, this horrific tragedy has brought idiots out of the wood work. Twitter time lines & Facebook feeds were going bananas. Case in point:
@snlergy1 said: "where are white people being killed besides snapped" and iraq?"
When I asked him if he seriously believed the douchebaggery coming out of his mouth, he replied:
(This man is clearly Yale or Harvard educated. I mean, obviously.)
So now, somehow this whole mess has turned into a gun control showdown, a public vs private school debate, and has even ignited racism. What is wrong with this world?
We live in fear of sending our kids to school, going to the movies, or to a shopping center. Then to ice the cake, someone has to throw the racist card. But that's a topic for another day. #OneLove
These are MY thoughts all summed up for you in an easy to understand way. While I know some of you will not share my feelings, can you honestly tell me that you'd be uncomfortable with armed security watching over YOUR babies while they're at school? Be honest.
THIS is the reality. ^
Which in turn makes me feel this way:
If you don't want guns in your home, then don't have them. That's your choice & right. But this was a preventable tragedy & no one can deny that. I'll bet the majority of you who are down with doing away with our weapons are the same ones who claim to be pro-life. You can't have your cake & eat it too.
A lot of things kill innocent people. Cars, airplanes, box cutters, kitchen knives, abortions, poison, bare hands, baseball bats, water...See Andrea Yates.....shall I keep going? Because I easily could.
Where do YOU stand on the gun control aspect of this situation?
*Someone grammar check me. I'm medicated. This might make no sense in the morning.
19 comments:
Sadly this individual needed long term inpatient mental help. A thing that has been denied for years for many. Rather we heavily medicate them and send them on their merry way with a smile and a pat on the back and say 'don't forget your meds'. The worse part is they do forget, because individuals this mentally ill, reach a point where they 'feel' normal. Isn't normal what they were after?? So why do they need the medications?
Gun safety starts in the home, it starts in doing background checks and mental health checks BEFORE every sale of a weapon. Although this man stole his own mother's gun a properly locked gun cabinet could have prevented it still. She knew he was disturbed, why on God's green earth would you keep access to weaponry to someone with apparent mental issues. I also think Morgan Freeman said it best. We have turned the mentally ill, who in phases like this before would have simply killed themselves and possibly just his mother, a pass to become famous. We were in such a rush to find out who the monster was they named the wrong brother for hours. Our haste to give him newsworthy status wrecked his older brothers life in the simple fact he was named as the responsible person.Take away the media about the person guilty of the crime and focus on the losses. Leave it at the damn coward took his own life cause only a coward would attack children. Period.
a mentally disturbed person or someone with mental issues that doesnt have the proper treatment can kill with anything. a car, a fist, a bow and arrow, a sharpened stick, a huge rock.. should we not be allowed to own any of those things? Since my dog could potentially hurt someone, should they be banned from being owned by me?
If you ban guns, bad guys will still ahve them, and good guys wont. Its the sad truth. if u ban them, people would make them , or do WHATEVER they can.
im not a huge fan of automatic weapons but whatever, but exactly my point with your grandmas story... if a rapist breaks into my home, and he is unarmed and I am unarmed...the chances of me being able to fight him off with my bare fists is unlikely, if he is bigger than me... but if i can grab a gun that i legally own as i make my way downstairs to see what the sounds in the night are.. i could potentially shoot him before he can rape/injure/kill me.
I stand behind you boobies!
PS - I really like your new blog design! <3
I don't have a problem with sane people having pretty much whatever weapons they want to have because they are not going to use them against anybody except to defend themselves or their families. That said I don't think the answer to the slaughters that are happening more and more frequently is throw more and more weapons into society. That has proven not to work.
I don't have the answer. I don't think we have enough money to hire armed security guards at all the schools year round. It would seem like prevention would be much more effective.
I also stand with you. My son was at VA TECH during the shootings. He lost a very special friend. He graduated and is living with us. and yes he does have a job. He and I were talking today about the killings and he said that it would be a mistake to take gun rights away. He felt in the case of VA TECH, that Corps of Cadets or inactive military should be allowed to carry on campus. They would have the necessary training and they are all over the campus. Hopefully someone would be the right spot if it ever happened again. As far as school age children, we feel a retired cop at every school would be a good solution and yes, he should carry. Evil is in this world and will affect your children in ways you cannot now imagine. We must not take away our rights. That would only give Evil the upper hand. Pray and hold your children. Tell them you love them. Teach them right from wrong.
A very well thought out, well written and important view.
Rae Higgins
i am soooooooo with you on this. everyone should have the right to carry a firearm to protect themselves, their families, their properties and their rights! PEOPLE KILL not guns, cars, alcohol, drugs. heck... look at all the side effects on drug advertisement and they STILL try to sell it to us! f'n idiots!
you rock girlfriend!
hugs :)
When I was in 9th grade, I lived in a decent city. The school system had no money so they started shutting down schools and cramming us together.
That year, we started having a city officer who was also armed at the school. I asked my cousins if the city cops were still at the school and turns out they are. The school doesn't pay for him the police station does.
There are no locks on the doors, no security check point, etc. If a gun man got in he'd easily be able to kill before the officer got to him.
In the city of Detroit they have metal detectors but they are broke cause the city of Detroit is broke. The don't have cops there for the same reason.
MI signed the bill the other day to say you can carry guns in a school, church, etc.
Most of America has mental issues. How many people take Xanax, Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Klopen, etc
Personally I think if a person has had to take any kind of mood stabilizer they shouldn't own a gun.
I'm not happy with MI's new law..esp with the way Detroit is right now. All I can picture is Tupac saying "give em guns, stand back and watch em kill each other" cause that's already happening where I live. They show 80/90 yr old people on the news holding guns all the time cause we don't even have cops to protect us.
My idea is to legalize the weed, tax it and hire more cops to protect us.
If you do carry a gun around here and you see a gun man ready to rob a place and you shoot them, you will be charged. If a person breaks into your home and you shoot him, you can be charged less you prove he was going to take your life. That info came from a C.Detective. He also said don't say anything to the police wait for your lawyer.
Love hearing all of your feedback. (Also pleasantly surprised that no one has left a death threat for me yet!)
Thank you guys for taking the time to read my opinions on this.
May all of the victims rest in peace.
I don't know how to feel about this Boobies and certainly can't write out as intelligently put argument such as yourself but I do know that what happened in Newtown was an absolute tragedy and this kind of thing seriously needs to end.
The thing is though that countries all around the world have gun use allowed and there's never been a massacre in the country's history like there are frequently in America. There's something inherently wrong with society when this happens so often and it blame surely can't sorely be put at the feet of guns. I don't get why it happens in America so much though, just don't understand it at all.
AMEN!!! I agree 100% and am sharing this. I just took my concealed weapons course a few weeks ago. As you said. If there was just one "good guy" with a gun an armed guard at the school.....I just wish there had been for the sake of all of these precious children and adults who lost their lives to this sick bastard.
Very well put. I couldn't agree more. I am not a gun owner myself but I am a man who believes in the foundation of our country, and the right to bare arms. People kill with all types of weapons and we don't go crazy demanding they be banned. Good post.
Standing ovation for this post!
So tired of the gun issue, how about more time on what's driving them to do it? This is not normal and the media makes it worse by giving them fame so the next one wants to do more.
Also I shudder to think what would happen had any of the people in the following link had not had their guns...(bet these hardly made the news)
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/mass-killings-stopped-by-armed-citizens/28307/
also how about the fact everyone of these people have been on some sort of medication...Come on I see the commercials, *warning may cause suicidal thoughts* in a supposed antidepressant! really!? I saw a documentary that the whole chemical imbalance in the brain was proved false in the 80's, and prozac and the like actually cause the problem they are said to help. And they have to put disclaimers on their pamphlets. Wish I could remember the name of the darn thing. Pharmaceuticals
scare me more than guns
I agree with you completely. We have guns in our home. My husband and I both go shooting regularly to make sure we can protect ourselves and our child if the need ever arose.
I heard it said once that criminals don't obey laws so what makes people think that they would obey a gun control law preventing them from owning a gun? It is not the weapons that are the problem it is the people behind them.
Hear hear!
I am of the opinion that banning guns is the worst way to go. If it came down to that I honestly believe that we would see another civil war.
I agree that people with severe mental issues should not be allowed access to the guns.
I also refuse to put blame on his mother. From what I have seen she was very responsible about owning guns. And before anyone goes ...well she took him to the shooting range. Of course she did!!! Where else can you properly teach gun safety!?!?!
Do you let your child become old enough to drive and have a car in the yard with access to keys and never tell them how to drive and just expect them to never try and take the car. Cause trust me at some point they are gonna want to drive and if you don't teach them it'll be worse.
Point is, people need to stop blaming everything under the sun other than this man.
Sick as he was it was still HIS choice to commit this tragedy. Not the guns, not his moms, not the health care or lack there of, it was HIS.
I agree with you. At home we currently have 2 guns and go to the shooting range about 2-3 times a month. Everyone in our house has been properly educated on using a gun. A ban on guns does not solve the problem if someone wants to kill someone they will find a way. Are we going to start banning cars to prevent hit & runs? Are we going to ban alcohol for drunk driving? Have you see documentaries on inmates. They have many ways of creating weapons to kill other inmates and trust me none of them are guns.
I completely agree with you but Im sure you saw my facebook rant this morning :)
I agree 1 million %. IMO if you take away guns they will find a way to get one, if not they will use bombs, knives, who knows what else. If that is the case then what do we take away next, our steak and butcher knives? Shall we not be allowed to cut our food anymore?
I believe even with armed guards it might be safer (though take the 22 stabbed in China, armed guards were across the street I believe), something does need to be done. My HS (wow that was years ago) had one door that could be accessed during the day (except the gym to field exit, which was used during classes and could only be opened by a teacher). To gain access you had to pass a local (armed) cop and a security guard, as well as the office. No classes were in this area and you would have to probably pass several other security guards before even making it to a class. You know what, short of a knife getting through by a stupid teenager trying to rob the coke delivery guy and a girl setting fire to the bathroom we never had any unwanted people in the building. IDs had to be presented, you had to sign in and out, you had to have a legit reason to be in the school and even then if you were picking up a child you had to remain at this door and your child was brought to you. The door wasn't even opened or unlocked until you stated why your were there.
amen sister. AMEN!
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