Not that anyone asked and it feels weird to be sharing these thoughts when the sun hasn’t even gone down yet, but I live in a country with quite strict gun control.
I have no issue with responsible legal gun owners. I have lots of friends who own guns. I like shooting them with them. They’re not the problem.
I have been treated for mental illness in the past and I have zero urge to kill anyone. I’m not the problem.
I’ve been a victim of gun violence. Robbed at gunpoint because two dudes saw an opportunity. Little did they know I was poor and had about $20 to my name.
I know one of the teachers who was killed trying to protect their students in Parkland. Very close friend of a close friend. So shootings like this hit close to home.
There’s no easy solution for any of this. Having over 300 million guns on the streets and limited prison and law enforcement resourced, access to healthcare, a widening poverty gap, and a fractured society has made for a perfect storm with social media being the perfect amplifier.
In my non expert opinion, the challenges that need to be addressed are anger, divisiveness, and ease of access.
You used to be able to disagree with people and respect their right to feel differently.
For me, If you like guns, awesome. If you like god, awesome.
If you like people who are the same sex as you, awesome. I’m not into it but you do you and show me the same respect to me.
Your enemy has gone from the person on the other side of the world wishing harm upon you to the person down the street who thinks differently than you do.
We live in and have survived some incredibly ****ed up times, whose effects will be felt for decades. People are more fed up and on edge and done than they’ve ever been, and it couldn’t be more easier to get your hands on legal things that cause mass casualties in a split second.
Up here, we are getting a lot more shootings and it’s because I am 45 minutes from the Michigan border where you can buy a gun for cash at a swap meet. Getting a gun up here legally is really ****ing hard. Crossing the border with some cash to hit up Olive Garden and the Sunday flea market is way ****ing easier. And our border patrol is a spectacle and many people have found it super easy to slip easily bought guns over.
I knew this idiot quite well. He got away with it many times, until he didn’t. He’s now missing the rest of the childhood of his two boys up here because he decided that $200 a pop was worth it, 67 times. Until he got caught. The guns he smuggled over turned up in a lot of shootings up here.
There’s no easy answer to undo the circumstances that got us here. I think finding a way to get along more often and find common ground more often and respect each others humanity and right to feel differently will help, instead of imposing will by force.
The only thing I hope is that we can find a way to go back to mutual respect, benefit of the doubt, and respecting our differences as opposed to trying to annihilate our “enemies”.
Making it harder to be free isn’t the answer. Imposing your will isn’t the answer. Going back to our roots will make a difference, but we clearly won’t be getting there anytime soon at this rate.
nypost.com
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