Posted By Kathleen David on February 15, 2018
This is one of my rare posts that touches upon the political landscape of my country. Feel free to skip and we will go back to the usual rambling tomorrow.
Last night I woke up in a cold sweat with pieces of a dream running around in my brain. I remember arguing with Caroline who really didn’t like her school uniform which now added a Kevlar vest and riot helmet with face shield to it. “It chafes,” she complained. “Wear it,” I said. “Why? I look stupid.” “Because I am your mother and I said so.” “Fine!” along with the teenage door slam. Then I woke up.
I know why I had this dream. Because some kid took a semi-automatic rifle into a high school and pulled the fire alarm then proceeded to kill 17 people and critically injuring a number of others. I will proceed to call this idiot the shooter because he has lost any worthiness of a name. Let it be forgotten.
We will hear about the why of this and people will give us the reasons for the shooter’s behavior. We already know that the shooter’s mother called on the police several times to ‘talk sense’ into him. We know the shooter was obsessed with guns and even brought them to school with him, which will become one of the reasons he had been expelled from the high school. He had problems. All the signs were there. We are going to hear about his mental health issues and the like over the coming weeks.
We are also going to hear about those who died like Athletic director Chris Hixon who was 49. We are going to hear about the brave football coach who was also a security guard at the school named Aaron Feis who jump in front of students to protect them from the shooter. He is being treated for his injuries but no one knows if he is going to survive.
You know what we are NOT going to hear about? Any form of restrictions of guns and gun parts. We live in a nation where a gun has more rights than a human being. Apparently somewhere along the way it was decided that guns are more important than people.
And again it was an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that took so many lives. I will never understand why we need military grade hardware in our homes.
I understand hunting rifles for killing game that then gets eaten. One rather lean year my roommates and I only source of protein was deer meat that a friend had shot and cleaned then gave us the meat to eat. Pistols for target practice I am fine with. I have shot guns on ranges.
Side note, one of the times I was in England and staying with a friends, their roommate got a call from his mother who was a bit worked up because the police had come by the house. She had thought something horrible had happened to his dad who worked at a bank. No, they had come by to talk to her about his father’s application for a gun permit to keep a pistol at a local shooting range for target practice.
Semi-automatic rifles are no good for hunting as you would tear up the animal to a point that it would be useless to try to eat. The only thing they are good for is killing people. That is what they are designed for. To kill people and boy howdy do they do a good job. Most of the recent mass shootings here have included that gun. Las Vegas had that gun and something called a bump stock that allowed it to go from semi to full automatic.
I don’t want to start the conversation. I want something done on a federal level that makes school shootings a rare thing rather than hearing ‘there has been another school shooting’ and learning about the potential that has been snuffed out because cold pieces of metal are more important then warm bodies of our young. And putting metal detectors in our schools is NOT the answers. More security is NOT the answer. Better mental health care might help but it is NOT the answer.
Let’s tell our representatives that we are mad as hëll and not going to take this any more. If they are in the pockets of the NRA, vote them the fûçk out. Let’s get candidates that aren’t afraid or beholden to the gun lobby and get something as simple as background checks and mental health checks in place before someone can even buy a gun. Make a paper trail of where each gun goes including private sales and gun shows. Have firearms registered with the local constabulary so they know who had firearms. Make the penalties for not doing so at the minimum losing the gun(s) with no compensation and never be allowed to purchase a gun again.
There are lots of ways to do without ‘taking away the guns’.
And yes I am for getting this military hardware off the streets of my country. It serves no purpose but to kill other citizens.
Oh the shooter legally owned all his firearms. No back alley buying on this one.
I am grateful that last night I could hug my daughter and she could hug me back.
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