I've been struggling the last week or so, and needed this writing as a venting, so to speak. I've left it in RS and not politics, because I believe it's a bigger issue. Mods can move it necessary. Let me know what you think. I'm contemplating putting on my Facebook to share as well. Not sure yet. Please hold in there, as it is 2,000 words. Sorry... TL;DR - Evil is evil. Leave my guns alone.
I’d like to preface the following around one fact… I’m not a writer. Heck, I’m barely a reader. I suppose those two characteristics are the reason I’ve gone into Manufacturing and Engineering for a career. It allows me to exercise, more frequently, my better qualities of problem solving, logic, and team building in my everyday life and help my company continue to be successful. Also, my beliefs may not necessarily be the beliefs of my employer’s. I’m speaking on my own terms and opinions. Now, on to what’s at the front of my mind.
I’ve spent the last several days trying to wrap my head around everything that we are experiencing as a country right now. On one hand, we have the Olympics currently being held on the other side of the world. Many of us have been semi-glued to NBC/NBCSN to watch some of the top athletes of the world compete and hoping we see the Red, White, and Blue prevail amongst the best. Heck, just this morning, I heard on the radio that the USA Women’s Hockey team was finally able to defeat Canada in a good ‘ole fashion shootout to win Gold for the first time in 20 years. The story was followed by chants of, “USA! USA! USA!”. It was a feel-good moment and events like the Olympics allow the majority of our country to put away all our differences to be on the same side for once. You know, kind of like we were all Eagles fans during the Super Bowl a few weeks ago?
Then, Florida happened. Another instance where an EVIL human being decided to prey upon the helpless, defenseless, and innocent with his weapon of choice, a firearm. Just like Las Vegas. Just like Orlando. Just like Virginia Tech. Just like Sandy Hook. Just like Sutherland. I think you get my point. There’s a crowd of people just going about their day at school, a concert, work, even church and an EVIL person sees an opportunity to inflict pain and destruction on those that are undeserving of such. It inflicts sadness, anger, and outrage among those of us that do not have these EVIL desires. We wonder how somebody in their right-mind can do such a thing. That’s just the thing… they’re not.
Many people, both on the left and right side of politics, label some of these events as a “Mental Health” issue. I don’t tend to completely agree. Are there mental health issues in the country, and the world? Of course. There are tons of mental illnesses, such as, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. These illnesses cause people to sense emotions, or lack-thereof, and feelings that are not “normal” to the rest of us. It must be a terrible experience and I pray that I never have to experience such feelings and pain. However, we can’t just lump all these EVIL people together and solely blame it on some opinion that their brain isn’t physically working as it should.
They’re not in the right state of mind doesn’t just mean that there’s a chemical imbalance somewhere that we can merely drug them up and keep them from wanting to kill a group of people. It can also mean that they are plain, wait for it, EVIL. You can’t tell me you didn’t see that coming. Even this semi-illiterate engineer knows how to foreshadow a bit. Evil, also described by my fancy Word Thesaurus as: Wicked, sinful, malicious, criminal, and immoral. That sounds like a lot of adjectives that I’d use to describe everyone responsible for these horrific killings.
So, naturally, as human beings, when we see a problem, we desire to identify and correct the problem. It seems that way to soon after an attack, such as described earlier, the problem is defined and described by the tool that was used. A firearm. Wait, is the problem that somebody killed X people with a gun or is the problem that X innocent people died? My belief is the latter. I think many “right-minded” people would tend agree with the opinion of, Innocent people shouldn’t be killed by another person. It doesn’t matter to me how the killer killed… They killed!
So, in my manufacturing mind, I’ve reached a problem statement. “Innocent people are being Killed”. Now, we just have to figure out why, why, why, why, and why. It’s not about HOW. There’s tons of those. However, society as a whole focuses on the how, blames the how, and tries to create laws around the how. Case in point is the call for stricter gun control, specifically an “Assault Weapons Ban” because the Florida kid used an A(rmalite)R(ifle)-15 to carry out his evil plan. However, do we follow the same logic and reasoning when approaching the other ways innocent people are killed?
I was going to begin this section listing a bunch of CDC statistics, but found myself going down a rabbit hole when bringing in such a large dataset of irrelevant information to my point. You can go look it all up. 2.7 Million American people died in 2015. Over a million because of heart disease and cancer. Number 10 was Suicide at 44,000.
So, back to approaching all ways innocent people are killed the same. In 2014 there were 652,639 lives taken due to the choice of another person… A mother. Yup, I brought it up, Abortion. Hot topic, right? You bet! Yes, there’s times that it’s “right” more than others, but end of the day, it’s the same result. A choice made by a mother (or a father I suppose if the mother is no longer capable of making the decision) to end the life a of a living being inside her body. If the true problem is that there’s too many innocent lives being taken, don’t you think we’d address Abortion a little different with such a large portion of the killing pie? Often, those who call for additional gun control, support the choice of abortion. Hey, let me clue you in on something, we could save a lot more lives, those of children like whom we hold up in the wake of a school shooting, if we reduce the amount of abortions performed in this country. I won’t even go into the topic of if it’s a possibility that a supply of children would help lower the cost of for adoption.
17,250 people in the United States were killed by a weapon in 2016. 7,105 of those were with a handgun, 1,604 with a “cutting instrument”, 656 with hands/feet, 472 with blunt objects, and 374 with rifles. Rifles represented 2.2% of all killings with a weapon. If we’re really looking to save the most innocent lives, is attacking 2.2% of them the right way to start?
“The AR-15 is a gun of war, it has no place in the hands of a citizen!” “The founding fathers were talking about Muskets in the 2A, not guns capable of firing 30 bullets in (insert ridiculously made up number)!” Just a couple paraphrased sayings I’ve heard and seen floating around. Hey, it’s the right of the people to speak freely, as given by the 1st Amendment. You know what’s funny though, the avenues that people use to speak freely today, did not exist at the time of the Founding Fathers.
Can you imagine John Adams saying to the group, “Now, my gentlemen, the right of free speech of the people must be maintained for the entirety of the Democracy? Hundreds of years later, Facebook will come to existence. It should not only be Mary’s right to share a photo of her lunch, but also express herself freely! Just as long as that Mark dude doesn’t shut down her page for doing so!”? Sounds ridiculous huh? Well, so does trying to say that they didn’t know about the AR-15. The 2nd Amendment gave the American citizens a fighting chance to rebel and defend against a government that may take shape of the one they fled from.
The AR-15 is not a weapon of war. It looks like a weapon of war. If you asked an Infantryman if he’d prefer to put an AR-15 up against its big brother, the M-16, or the enemy’s AK-47, I’m going to guess he’ll decline. It’s literally the last line of defense for the citizens of our country to defend ourselves against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. “Well, the government has planes, bombs, and grenade launchers! Should those be legal too!?”. Boy, we’re getting deep in here, eh? Personally, I’d believe that if someone had the money and was legally vetted that they had no intent to harm the innocent, then yeah, let Bill Gates have an F-15 to play with. Not hurting me any. However, when you get into that type of argument, you begin splitting hairs. I’m not going there. I’m already 1500 words into this writing. End of the day, it’s not my, or any other LEGAL, RIGHT-MINDED owners’, firearms that are causing the deaths of innocent men, women, and children. Banning a device because in can be used in the name of evil, is not going to solve our problem. So, what will?
Evil was obviously the topic I’m trying to go with here. It is the sinful and malicious that wish to carry out deeds such as Florida. The firearm just happened to be the tool. 9/11 used planes as tools. The Paris attack used a truck. Boston used a homemade bomb. Mothers use a doctor and medical procedure (Yes, I believe there’s small slice of evil in a person who decides to abort. Doesn’t mean I think they’re an evil person). They’re all tools. If we don’t seriously attack the evil that exists, then we’ll never be able to rid the world of all the tools they use to perform their acts. In the specific issue of guns, I think a stepping stone is to develop new and deeper ways to uncover the potential evil that may exist in a person and decide if they are continued the right to own. Yes, mental illness can be part of that, but it’s only a small portion. Evil can exist in many different ways. The good news, is that there is The Way to battle evil, but that’s for another day.
I have a 2.5-year-old son. I look at that precious face and am both saddened and ecstatic at the fact that he doesn’t know what’s going on yet. However, there will soon come a day where he’ll have to step foot into a school, just like the one in Florida. So, I must put myself in that perspective to try to think of a solution to the problem. There’s different levels Why the innocent are being killed. I 100% believe in protecting our schools in a more-effective manner than simply putting a sign on the front lawn. We don’t do that for our government, our airports, or our celebrities, so why do the same for our children. No, not every teacher needs to be packing a Glock 19 either. Gun ownership is not for everyone and I will not force it on those who are not willing and comfortable to do so. However, you can’t tell me that there’s no way to leverage the unemployed war veteran market to help protect our children. Heck not just the unemployed either. I’d be willing to bet that even veterans in stable job would choose to leave it if it meant protecting our children. That’s not a fact-based statement, only an opinion.
At the end of the day, I thank God I live in the United States. I’ve seen the way other countries live first-hand and that’s no place I’d like to be for a lifetime. We’re in this game of life in the States together people. Can we not treat it like the Olympics by supporting and cheering each other on to perform to the best of our abilities? Life isn’t going to just hand us all Gold medals you know?
I’d like to preface the following around one fact… I’m not a writer. Heck, I’m barely a reader. I suppose those two characteristics are the reason I’ve gone into Manufacturing and Engineering for a career. It allows me to exercise, more frequently, my better qualities of problem solving, logic, and team building in my everyday life and help my company continue to be successful. Also, my beliefs may not necessarily be the beliefs of my employer’s. I’m speaking on my own terms and opinions. Now, on to what’s at the front of my mind.
I’ve spent the last several days trying to wrap my head around everything that we are experiencing as a country right now. On one hand, we have the Olympics currently being held on the other side of the world. Many of us have been semi-glued to NBC/NBCSN to watch some of the top athletes of the world compete and hoping we see the Red, White, and Blue prevail amongst the best. Heck, just this morning, I heard on the radio that the USA Women’s Hockey team was finally able to defeat Canada in a good ‘ole fashion shootout to win Gold for the first time in 20 years. The story was followed by chants of, “USA! USA! USA!”. It was a feel-good moment and events like the Olympics allow the majority of our country to put away all our differences to be on the same side for once. You know, kind of like we were all Eagles fans during the Super Bowl a few weeks ago?
Then, Florida happened. Another instance where an EVIL human being decided to prey upon the helpless, defenseless, and innocent with his weapon of choice, a firearm. Just like Las Vegas. Just like Orlando. Just like Virginia Tech. Just like Sandy Hook. Just like Sutherland. I think you get my point. There’s a crowd of people just going about their day at school, a concert, work, even church and an EVIL person sees an opportunity to inflict pain and destruction on those that are undeserving of such. It inflicts sadness, anger, and outrage among those of us that do not have these EVIL desires. We wonder how somebody in their right-mind can do such a thing. That’s just the thing… they’re not.
Many people, both on the left and right side of politics, label some of these events as a “Mental Health” issue. I don’t tend to completely agree. Are there mental health issues in the country, and the world? Of course. There are tons of mental illnesses, such as, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. These illnesses cause people to sense emotions, or lack-thereof, and feelings that are not “normal” to the rest of us. It must be a terrible experience and I pray that I never have to experience such feelings and pain. However, we can’t just lump all these EVIL people together and solely blame it on some opinion that their brain isn’t physically working as it should.
They’re not in the right state of mind doesn’t just mean that there’s a chemical imbalance somewhere that we can merely drug them up and keep them from wanting to kill a group of people. It can also mean that they are plain, wait for it, EVIL. You can’t tell me you didn’t see that coming. Even this semi-illiterate engineer knows how to foreshadow a bit. Evil, also described by my fancy Word Thesaurus as: Wicked, sinful, malicious, criminal, and immoral. That sounds like a lot of adjectives that I’d use to describe everyone responsible for these horrific killings.
So, naturally, as human beings, when we see a problem, we desire to identify and correct the problem. It seems that way to soon after an attack, such as described earlier, the problem is defined and described by the tool that was used. A firearm. Wait, is the problem that somebody killed X people with a gun or is the problem that X innocent people died? My belief is the latter. I think many “right-minded” people would tend agree with the opinion of, Innocent people shouldn’t be killed by another person. It doesn’t matter to me how the killer killed… They killed!
So, in my manufacturing mind, I’ve reached a problem statement. “Innocent people are being Killed”. Now, we just have to figure out why, why, why, why, and why. It’s not about HOW. There’s tons of those. However, society as a whole focuses on the how, blames the how, and tries to create laws around the how. Case in point is the call for stricter gun control, specifically an “Assault Weapons Ban” because the Florida kid used an A(rmalite)R(ifle)-15 to carry out his evil plan. However, do we follow the same logic and reasoning when approaching the other ways innocent people are killed?
I was going to begin this section listing a bunch of CDC statistics, but found myself going down a rabbit hole when bringing in such a large dataset of irrelevant information to my point. You can go look it all up. 2.7 Million American people died in 2015. Over a million because of heart disease and cancer. Number 10 was Suicide at 44,000.
So, back to approaching all ways innocent people are killed the same. In 2014 there were 652,639 lives taken due to the choice of another person… A mother. Yup, I brought it up, Abortion. Hot topic, right? You bet! Yes, there’s times that it’s “right” more than others, but end of the day, it’s the same result. A choice made by a mother (or a father I suppose if the mother is no longer capable of making the decision) to end the life a of a living being inside her body. If the true problem is that there’s too many innocent lives being taken, don’t you think we’d address Abortion a little different with such a large portion of the killing pie? Often, those who call for additional gun control, support the choice of abortion. Hey, let me clue you in on something, we could save a lot more lives, those of children like whom we hold up in the wake of a school shooting, if we reduce the amount of abortions performed in this country. I won’t even go into the topic of if it’s a possibility that a supply of children would help lower the cost of for adoption.
17,250 people in the United States were killed by a weapon in 2016. 7,105 of those were with a handgun, 1,604 with a “cutting instrument”, 656 with hands/feet, 472 with blunt objects, and 374 with rifles. Rifles represented 2.2% of all killings with a weapon. If we’re really looking to save the most innocent lives, is attacking 2.2% of them the right way to start?
“The AR-15 is a gun of war, it has no place in the hands of a citizen!” “The founding fathers were talking about Muskets in the 2A, not guns capable of firing 30 bullets in (insert ridiculously made up number)!” Just a couple paraphrased sayings I’ve heard and seen floating around. Hey, it’s the right of the people to speak freely, as given by the 1st Amendment. You know what’s funny though, the avenues that people use to speak freely today, did not exist at the time of the Founding Fathers.
Can you imagine John Adams saying to the group, “Now, my gentlemen, the right of free speech of the people must be maintained for the entirety of the Democracy? Hundreds of years later, Facebook will come to existence. It should not only be Mary’s right to share a photo of her lunch, but also express herself freely! Just as long as that Mark dude doesn’t shut down her page for doing so!”? Sounds ridiculous huh? Well, so does trying to say that they didn’t know about the AR-15. The 2nd Amendment gave the American citizens a fighting chance to rebel and defend against a government that may take shape of the one they fled from.
The AR-15 is not a weapon of war. It looks like a weapon of war. If you asked an Infantryman if he’d prefer to put an AR-15 up against its big brother, the M-16, or the enemy’s AK-47, I’m going to guess he’ll decline. It’s literally the last line of defense for the citizens of our country to defend ourselves against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. “Well, the government has planes, bombs, and grenade launchers! Should those be legal too!?”. Boy, we’re getting deep in here, eh? Personally, I’d believe that if someone had the money and was legally vetted that they had no intent to harm the innocent, then yeah, let Bill Gates have an F-15 to play with. Not hurting me any. However, when you get into that type of argument, you begin splitting hairs. I’m not going there. I’m already 1500 words into this writing. End of the day, it’s not my, or any other LEGAL, RIGHT-MINDED owners’, firearms that are causing the deaths of innocent men, women, and children. Banning a device because in can be used in the name of evil, is not going to solve our problem. So, what will?
Evil was obviously the topic I’m trying to go with here. It is the sinful and malicious that wish to carry out deeds such as Florida. The firearm just happened to be the tool. 9/11 used planes as tools. The Paris attack used a truck. Boston used a homemade bomb. Mothers use a doctor and medical procedure (Yes, I believe there’s small slice of evil in a person who decides to abort. Doesn’t mean I think they’re an evil person). They’re all tools. If we don’t seriously attack the evil that exists, then we’ll never be able to rid the world of all the tools they use to perform their acts. In the specific issue of guns, I think a stepping stone is to develop new and deeper ways to uncover the potential evil that may exist in a person and decide if they are continued the right to own. Yes, mental illness can be part of that, but it’s only a small portion. Evil can exist in many different ways. The good news, is that there is The Way to battle evil, but that’s for another day.
I have a 2.5-year-old son. I look at that precious face and am both saddened and ecstatic at the fact that he doesn’t know what’s going on yet. However, there will soon come a day where he’ll have to step foot into a school, just like the one in Florida. So, I must put myself in that perspective to try to think of a solution to the problem. There’s different levels Why the innocent are being killed. I 100% believe in protecting our schools in a more-effective manner than simply putting a sign on the front lawn. We don’t do that for our government, our airports, or our celebrities, so why do the same for our children. No, not every teacher needs to be packing a Glock 19 either. Gun ownership is not for everyone and I will not force it on those who are not willing and comfortable to do so. However, you can’t tell me that there’s no way to leverage the unemployed war veteran market to help protect our children. Heck not just the unemployed either. I’d be willing to bet that even veterans in stable job would choose to leave it if it meant protecting our children. That’s not a fact-based statement, only an opinion.
At the end of the day, I thank God I live in the United States. I’ve seen the way other countries live first-hand and that’s no place I’d like to be for a lifetime. We’re in this game of life in the States together people. Can we not treat it like the Olympics by supporting and cheering each other on to perform to the best of our abilities? Life isn’t going to just hand us all Gold medals you know?
