Thoughts

I just read the eulogy a mother wrote for her 6 year old son who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.  She referred to him as “little man”, which is what I call Ben also.  It absolutely broke my heart to read it.   I also read where the father of a 6 year old daughter that was killed in the shooting said he was going to pray for the shooters family also.  He is a much better person than I am, that’s for sure.

There is so much controversy surrounding this shooting about the gun laws.  I’ve seen people arguing both sides of that argument to the fullest and also read people’s statuses on FB saying that they think it’s horrible people are turning this in to a political thing.  But how can you not?  How can you not think about what your views are on gun laws when some kid walks in to a primary school and kills 27 people?   I can’t imagine going through what those poor surviving kids and parents have gone through.  I can’t imagine having one of my children killed in a shooting at school a few days before Christmas.  Having presents bought and wrapped for them that they’ll never get to open.  Already having their stocking hung up some where.  It literally makes me sick to my stomach to think about it.  And it makes me scared to send my kids to school.  Or to the movies.  Or to a mall.

I realize that bad things are going to happen whether guns are banned or not.  People will find other ways to do harm if they really want to.  And I can see both sides of the argument.  People want to carry guns to be able to protect themselves, and people don’t want other people to carry guns so they don’t have to worry about protecting themselves.  What I don’t understand is why those sort of assault weapons need to be available to the general public.  If you want to have hunting rifles or small hand guns, then fine.  I get that.  But why does anyone outside of the military or law enforcement need to be able to own guns that can kill 27 people in under 2 minutes?  The ONLY purpose of those guns are to kill or injure as many people as possible in as short of time as possible.  I was part of a discussion on FB and my stance was what I wrote above and another person said something like heroin is illegal too, but people find a way to get ahold of that so banning guns isn’t going to do any good because people will still find ways to get them.   I understand what she was saying, but by that rational, maybe we should make heroin legal also?  I mean if we know people are still using it and they’re going to find ways to get it whether it’s legal or illegal, why not just legalize it?  You know people are going to speed even though limits are posted, so maybe we should just take those down also?  I realize that criminals don’t follow laws, and I’m not saying that all guns need to be banned.  But I do think it would do some good to not make certain weapons available to the public.

On the flip side of that, I read an article about how if some people (school principals, banks, etc) were required to have guns that maybe it would deter criminals from trying to do mass shootings.  If they knew they most likely wouldn’t get very far because there was someone armed with a gun nearby, maybe that would make them think twice about doing a mass shooting.  I don’t know if it would work, but I suppose it’s at least worth considering.  Anything is worth considering at this point.

Mark and I were talking about how messed up Americans seem to be these days.  According to this article, 15 of the last 25 mass shootings worldwide have taken place in the US.  Why are Americans so nuts?  I do feel safer over here in Europe than I do in the States.  I don’t know if it’s because there are so many broken homes in the US, or the access to decent healthcare isn’t as easily available to everyone, or the media influence there or what.  Maybe some sort of combination of all of them?  I have no idea really, but it seems like there is something in our culture than provokes people to do these sort of things. 

My heart goes out to the families that lost family members in the shooting.  I hope that this will spark actions that attempt to make the US a safer nation to live in, however that may be.