gun control

   hate to use the lives of twenty school age kids , let alone the six adults whose lives were lost that day in newton , conn. as a means of expressing myself. but i am tired of the in your face mindless rhetoric being spewed forth by the gun activists. i intend to divert myself for a short time and become political on my stance against gun control. 

     things are not as they used to be. our schools are prisons . sandy valley high school where i attended , and graduated from is not as it used to be. it has been replaced by a newer more modern efficient asbestos free building that closely resembles a prison minus the razor wire. all new schools are being designed in the same way as  it makes security a lot easier.as a kid we  didnt have air conditioning in our school and in the summer the doors and windows in our classrooms  as well as the doors to the schools were flung wide open to let the breezes sail through the halls to fight off the sweltering heat.

     because of security concerns,  no longer do we have open doors but instead have students caged up in windowless boxes so that they can devote their full attention to the task at hand supposedly. 

      but still with all the security it wasn't enough to stop a gunman from entering a school in and killing 20 innocent lives as well as 6 others who probably had done nothing to this man.in referring to him as a man i  refuse to call him a boy as he was an adult by all standards. no doubt a man with a problem what ever it might have been . mentally insufficient , although considered bright by his peers , still crazy enough to steal his mothers guns and shoot her in the face , and go to a school and see how much of a head count he could muster up in a short time before killing himself . a cowardly way out of avoiding grief. this man who was undoubtedly immature in mental capacity but mature enough to do the deed, caused so much grief on all levels and makes me question why are guns even necessary anymore. 

      i hope this pisses off a lot of my gun loving friends as anyone who knows me really well would surely understand i never really cared for them or violence of any kind in the first place. a while back when i was being harassed by hunters wanting to hunt on my grandmas land i developed this preference for non hunting and became more opposed to guns then ever before as back as then i sensed hunting was not the same as it used to be. i witnessed hunters becoming irate over where to park there car when they hunted our lands. wanting to park in our drive to impede our ability to enter and exit as we wished. carrying guns over their shoulders to ask permission to hunt from my 89 year old grandma. threatening me personally over their ability to hunt . and even forcing government agencies like the muskingum watershed conservancy district to issue me a warning letter telling me to cease and desist , when telling hunters they had no permission to hunt or park on our own property. the last action on behalf of the governmental agency paved the way for new parking on the governments land and stopping the hunters from parking on ours. 

     now i am only one person and have my beliefs and yet prize the Constitution for all its merits when it was written. changes have been made rather reluctantly to the original constitution to keep pace with society as it evolves. two amendments have been fought over with increasing frustration over the years . the right to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. the right to freedom of speech allows me to say my peace here today and i feel just as fervently about it as gun owners feel about their right to bear arms. but words and pictures never killed a kid . they might have inspired him , derided him , made him feel small , inflated his ego , or brought him down but never have they ever killed a kid. now our schools have become prisons and we are selling six million guns per year to new people to use for self defense. against who? ourselves. we are at war with our selves with 34 people per day being killed by guns. not shotguns but handguns and assault rifles for the most part. shotguns are to messy as they tend to obliterate. and lord forbid the shooter has one taken from him and used on himself. by far the preference in shooting a human is a handgun. great for short distances and usually features a bullet that fragments upon impact causing more lethal damage if within a close proximity. for longer ranges then use a an assault type weapon.  the manufacturers tout these facts in selling their handguns. neither are good for hunting and have limited use. 

      when the constitution was written we had neither the handgun in the 17 bullet clip automatic or semiautomatic models we have today or the 223 caliber assault rifle with an expanded clip or the oozie , of which i am not aware of the correct spelling , as well as other types of automatic and semiautomatic  rifles we have today.  what we had was single shot flintlock muzzle loaders. almost every family needed one to stave off bear or indian attacks , and to fight in the revolution against england . well we haven't been at war with england for quite awhile and indian attacks have been frequent and far between . so the only other use we have for weapons in our society now is for hunting of animals much like it was in the 1700's . weapons had been used as a means of self defense but was rather discouraged over the years . any attempt at legislating guns per se has been met with violent opposition by the manufacturers of these weapons over the years. lobbying congress persons to stop any anti gun movement before it became law. the nra has served as of lately as the vehicle for opposition to any anti gun legislation. 

      the frequency of lately the gun attacks have been coming, is forcing us to look once again at limiting the use of guns. and again the gun owners are fighting back. i look at at a teacher leading kids out of a school with their hands clasped together and their eyes shut to avoid the horror of possibly seeing a friend or brother or sister shot and think to myself is this what society has become. were the mayans right in their prediction that all hell is breaking loose? is this the best that we as humans can achieve in a society? is gun ownership more important than human lives? especially when they are our own kids . i would gladly give up my rights to gun ownership if it would bring back one of those lives lost. 

      the gun owners answer would be to arm everyone. well i am kind of a barney fife in that respect would probably shoot myself in the foot if i had a gun. and when i was hunting with my dad i always had a tendency to close my eyes when pulling the trigger. not always a good thing to do. and could imagine a populace full of guns wanting to wait for that opportunity to finally be able to defend themselves . if everyone had a gun those kids would still be defenseless as well i am sure you would never be able to arm a country one hundred percent as people like myself would defend our right to not want guns in our life. there would just be more of the same if everyone is armed . the shootings would become more frequent and higher and higher head counts would prevail . 

    so what is the answer? we will always have people with mental health issues trying crazy things like this shooting. husbands will break up with cheating wives or vice versa, and disputes will be settled one way or another but eliminating or making it harder to kill someone with a handgun or an assault rifle still seems like the best option to me. automatic shotguns should also be eliminated as well . muzzle loaders and single shot shotguns should stay as they do offer those hunters a chance to still participate in the sport of hunting. bow hunters are not offered more than one arrow and seem to be proficient in hunting game. 

      also we need to change our laws . one strike you are out. use a handgun in a felony and you go to prison for life. throw the druggies out of prison and make room for the robbers and anyone who uses a weapon in any way , whether their is loss of life or not to a permanent vacation in one of our premier prisons. if you use a weapon to rob a store or bank you go to prison for life. no exceptions. even if it is a vengeful killing. say for instance somebody killed a family member and then you killed them. you would still go to prison for life. we need legislation that works. banning handguns and assault rifles as well as legislation on using handguns in a felony is just a start. 

     next we have to work on mental health as it relates to events like these. but we can not lock up someone because they are crazy and have done nothing wrong. we need to help not hurt those in need.