April was one of the bloodiest months in our nation’s recent history. A young man decided to take a gun and cold-bloodedly murder his fellow classmates. Moments like these are when you want to put life on hold, scream and cry a little, and then ask, “What the hell is wrong with this world?”
Is it the fact that there are too many guns and weapons out there for just about anyone to get a hold of? Maybe.
Weapons are a mixed blessing; we are damned if we have them and damned if we don’t.
We have to consider that without having weapons kept legal for everyday normal citizens to defend themselves, then the only people with weapons will be the ones out there out to cause harm or break the law and big brother (yes, I went there…the government).
If we disarm the general population then we run into the argument that we leave ourselves vulnerable to attacks from criminals and possibly (not impossible) government. The only problem with that argument is that the weapons of the military are about a billion times (OK, maybe just a million or two) more powerful than what your typical gun owner would have. But then again, it is our constitutional right to be able to defend ourselves.
The only thing wrong with the second amendment is that the founding fathers never quite seemed to consider and explain the question of who should be able to have a gun/weapon. Does someone that is known to be a menace to society deserve the right to own a gun? Does your 96-year old neighbor need to have a gun (and a driver’s license for that matter…but that is another argument for another day)?
I love the “hunting” excuse for owning guns that could very well pass off as military assault weapons; that I know of there are no giant blue whales or elephants loose in the brush!
Gun ownership these days has become more of a privilege than a right in this country; and that is how it should be. Only those that have proven themselves capable of handling one should be able to own one. But that unfortunately is not the way things are. I think gun ownership rights should be revisited by our congress (something they just completely overlooked this session). There is no question that the laws that govern who can obtain a firearm in this country are in need of major changes (perfect example is how this messed up psychopath that murdered all those students was able to get one).
And somebody needs to hand the NRA a restraining order for their abuse of handing out money to politicians to keep the sale of guns up. Has the NRA forgotten about the shots fired by our vice-president when out on his shooting expedition not so long ago? Are the members blind to the result of having armor piercing bullets out there for criminals to get a hold of and shoot our policemen? Does the NRA really not care about protecting the lives of our policemen?
Never mind that our public servants, cops, are underpaid…the NRA seems to have a mission to make the lives of our men and women in blue shorter.
We need to come together as a nation and determine what we should keep legal and what needs to go.
Tougher laws and restrictions are needed to control this out of control gun ownership dilemma that we face.
I support the right of mentally sane, peaceful citizens of this country to own guns/weapons for their protection, just not for anything more than that.
Too many lives are ended prematurely due to these horrible creations of man.
These are my thoughts, let’s hear yours. Write to me at:
bridgeeditor@tamiu.edu
“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?” – Thomas Jefferson