• Having a change of mind on gun control

    December 23, 2012 / No Comments

    So I’ve been reading a lot of articles about the recent shooting in Newtown and I’m having a bit of a change of heart on the gun control issue. It was my initial knee-jerk reaction to want to ban all automatic/semi-automatic military grade weapons. It was understandable considering was just happened, and it was probably my liberal bias coming through. Everybody has a bias, and I encourage you to try and understand your bias and look through it.

    The NRA’s comments were pretty ridiculous, but they partially changed my mind. They tried to put the blame on video games and movies. It’s pretty obvious to me that video games and movies aren’t the problem. Other countries have the same movies and video games and don’t have the same gun problems. What changed my mind though was how they put the blame on another source that they probably don’t understand. That was exactly what I did. I’m not a gun owner, so I really don’t understand them, so obviously that’s who I blamed. While others who hate the media blamed too much media coverage.

    It’s a complicated situation, and nobody really knows the cause or the solution. The reality is that, although they seem common, shootings like this are pretty rare. Every one of them probably has a different cause, and because the shooter usually kills himself, it’s hard to learn what the true motive is.

    Punishing 99.99% of the responsible gun owners isn’t the proper solution. Sure, a total gun ban would solve the problem, but is that really a country you want to live in? Gun have many positive uses, and the great majority of people use them responsibly. While I don’t understand why a person wants to own a military grade weapon, it’s not up to me to decide. It’s similar to abortion. I am totally against abortions, and think they are wrong, yet I am pro-choice because I don’t think it’s right for me to decide what’s right for others.

    I wish there was an easy answer, but there isn’t.

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  • Mixtapes video for “Anyways”

    December 22, 2012 / No Comments

    One of my favorite bands, Mixtapes just released a new video for their song “Anyways”. I love their videos. They are almost all just single shot videos. This one is probably the worst one, but that makes it great in it’s own way.

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  • My not so original thoughts…

    December 17, 2012 / No Comments

    This latest school shooting has really hit me hard. I don’t know if it is because of their age, or the time of the year it’s happening. It’s probably a combination of both. This is my third attempt to blog about it, and really, I don’t have much to say that hasn’t been said before, so I’m going to keep it short.

    To the people that say now isn’t the time to talk about gun control, you are right. That time has passed long ago. How many more people are going to die before we do something? Everyday that goes by more people are dieing from gun deaths that could’ve been prevented. I’m not talking about a total ban, but some guns just shouldn’t be available to the public. There is just no reason for people to own automatic and semi-automatic guns. Would it really be the end of the world for gun owners to have to have some sort of training, and education on proper storage of their guns? I like my friend Mikey’s suggestion on treating owning guns like driving a car. Both are dangerous, so both should require proper training and education.

    We need to invest more into mental health care. This is a harder topic in my opinion. People often don’t know that they need help, and people around people don’t realize they need help until often times it’s to late. It always seems obvious after the fact, but never is really that obvious.

    It makes me sick to my stomach when people use tragedies like this to push their agendas. Forcing kids to pry to your god would in no way prevented this. Also, preying is not banded in school. Anybody can prey any time they want in school. Forcing everybody to prey to a certain god is not allowed. Religion is a private thing, because believe it or not, people have different believes.

    I wish events like this would bring us together to sit down and rationally think it over to try and find solutions. Sadly it seems to divide our nation even more. I highly doubt anything will be done, and I can almost guarantee you there will be another school shooting this spring.

    There, I got that off my chest.

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