Since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary which took the lives of 26 people including 20 children people have been all over the media screaming for stricter gun laws. I get the point people are trying to make, but I honestly believe that no matter how much we restrict the sales and regulate the use of firearms there will still be evil people in the world that will find new ways to hurt the innocent.
In the midst of this horrific event Japan has basically bashed the United States over its gun laws. Japan is known for having really strict gun laws and has next to no gun related deaths per year, but back in 2001 a school janitor walked through a school with a knife stabbing 29 people and killing 8 children between the ages of 7 and 8.
In China, which also has very strict gun laws, there was a similar incident that happened the same day as the Conn. shooting. A 36 year old man walked into an elementary school with a knife and began to cut down small children. He was able to attack 22 children before he was finally taken down. None of the 22 kids were killed, but this just goes to show that people will find ways to inflict harm.
Do we need to change some of our laws regarding guns? Probably. Will that ensure that small kids won’t be killed? Unlikely. I wish I had the answers we are looking for here, but I don’t. I am not even sure if there are answers anymore. It seems like people brush important law reforms under the rug till something like this happens and then every politician is on TV telling us we need changes.
I agree that we need changes, but we need to start with the people and not the guns. In Canada 1 out of every 4 people own a firearm and yet the in recent years the death by firearm total is only in the low hundreds. In the United States we average almost 30 thousand gun related deaths a year. This tells me guns and laws aren’t the problem, its the people holding the guns.
Talkin' Shit 
Absolutely spot on Nick. 😉
Thank you John!
AMEN!!! You are absolutly right!!!
Thank you Mom!
And the culture of violence in this country. Ten year olds can watch somebody’s head being blown off but can’t hear the word “damn.” You can’t rent a car until you’re 25 but you can get a gun at 17. Rational gun controls, i.e., banning private gun sales where there are no checks on who is buying guns, or regulating them, putting “child-proof” locks on all guns manufactured; banning assault weapons; and many other common sense restrictions may not avoid all crazies from killing but it may limit the killing….isn’t that good enough reason to try it?
I am all for trying any option that would lower the number of deaths. I just think we need to be more realistic and understand that such laws won’t stop the violence.
No
Agreed, on all points.
I remember reading a statistic in a psych class not too long ago saying that age related violence occurs most with youths between the ages of 14-24. Maybe making the purchasing of guns illegal until 25 would be a smart course of action. I mean you can’t buy cigarettes til 18, beer til 21 and maybe guns at 25 will be next.
I mean that’s an option people much smarter than me should probably look at. A lot of psychologists are wondering why America is having so much more gun related killings than Canada because of the statistic you mentioned. ‘If the guns aren’t the reason then is it something with American society?’ Is something they’re asking.
Those stats really do make you wonder. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with us?
Nick….I agree with everything you said.
Thank you Theresa!
find it pretty disturbing to see all the posts made yesterday using the tragic events in Newton, CT as an avenue to solicit their political or religious beliefs. Comments such as “this wouldn’t have happened if” there was a stronger religious presence in school or there were more/less gun control laws in place, I feel were ill-timed. If the only emotional response you had yesterday was something
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long those line, then I’m afraid you’re missing the point. While everyone has a right to their own political beliefs, save them for a day when innocent children aren’t killed. Yesterday was a day to grieve for those whose lives were lost and to be thankful for the teachers, faculty, and first responders that risked their lives to save others.
Well said sir! I just had a discussion with a coworker about this exact topic. It pisses me off seeing people jockey for airtime just to get their voice heard. What kind of an asshole steals the spotlight off murdered children?
The type of assholes that people elect to govern our nation. Speaks to the intelligence of the populous eh? Good post friend. It’s been a minute since I’ve read your blog.
As a Connecticut resident and an educator, this whole situation hits a little too close to home. The heroics of the staff members of that school are amazing. I’m proud and honored to be among a group of people who have such a noble profession.
That being said, I’m disturbed by comments that I’ve seen on Facebook since yesterday saying, “If only one of those teachers had a weapon….” Um, NO! Guns have NO place around children at all. Regardless of who’s wielding it. Violence breeds violence, and one violent act is not solved by another.
I am not naive, I know that stricter gun laws probably would not have stopped this from happening. The biggest problem we have is the sensationalism of the media. This guy will be forever remembered, but I have to question how many of the victim’s names will be remembered by anyone other than the families of those whose lives were lost?
It’s the violence young kids are seeing, watching, hearing about and playing with, like in all computer games. The violence is present to such an extent and in such a disgusting way in so many movies, that we can say some kids grow up with understanding that blowing off somebody’s head is just the right thing to do.
Add to this street influence, drugs at young age, add the overall disregard for higher principles in life, lack of human approach in family relationship, ignorance of feelings and emotional emptiness, add to this nervous breakdowns because of all the above, mental diseases because of genetic inheritance, and the picture is pretty clear.
Normal person wouldn’t shoot anybody regardless of number of guns available. These are the fruits of inhuman and socially indifferent system. When the governing principle becomes greed and the highest goal is money, there’s no time to take care about a healthy social environment for growing up generations.
Here, Here!!!
Yup! You nailed it.
Put me in the shoes of those parents who’s children were shot dead…..put me in the shoes of the parents of the children who survived the knife attack. God forbid, I would never want to be in either of those shoes, ever (and nobody should be) but I’m sorry, I’d rather there was a chance my child would survive.
I reckon that USA needs to change their gun laws and that’s that. The reason that people are the problem with the amount of killings that go in in the USA (and I’m not talking about crazies going into a school and killing small children) is that when there is a domestic dispute, or your neighbour pisses you off, you can grab your gun and go threaten them or kill them with it.
It is tragic, sad and very disturbing.
You are totally right that it is not the weapon but the person using it. I suppose it doesn’t hurt to try anything that may work.
Well blogged, Nick–and I like your blog’s title, reminds me of my URL–“Drunkspew:)” lol. You have a well-written and nicely titled work; ’til reading it, I hadn’t personally thought of even applying gun control and laws to this issue. I’m more with INESE, up there a couple posts–she is spot on to me, I’d vote for her!!!!! Awesome stuff; it’s a time for thinking how WE CAN IMPROVE. Stay up, keep your head up Nick, and know that this is worth it; this discussion, these posts–this CAN ake a difference and is. “Life is all about making an effort” to paraphrase from Charles Dickens’ Mrs. Chick in “Dombey and Son” (a book really about Dombey and Daughter, a Great book). Thanks for your effort, may we keep Trying, and I’ll add: TALK TO STRANGERS, TALK ABOUT RELIGION AND POLITICS often, let’s break those old-fshioned taboos to engage each other, and keep feelings from getting bottled up and pressured cooked, like that poor unfortunate, lonely kid who played a horrible real life “Assasin’s Creed” game a few days ago at a school. p.s. I don’t know that game, but assume it’s violent and about killing people.
Hi, we haven’t “talked” in awhile, but I gave your blog an award (it’s supposed to be for new bloggers, but I changed the rules to blogs I like – period!) http://maryannemistretta.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/the-liebster-award/
Evil is in the person not the product. You are spot on Nick.
Well said, as always. I always agree with your views. I HATE HATE HATE guns but they exist, and even if they were illegal, people would find a way to get one. And if not a gun, then some other weapon. It’s people who need to take a look at their disgusting selves. I’ll never understand what can make a person kill anyone, but especially a child. An innocent child. 😦
Thanks for killing my posts asshole
Disregard my last post if you got it–wordpress via my email gave me a wrong list of posts, where it seemed I was not included. 🙂 Sorry!!!!
No worries sir 🙂
You are so right. If people want to kill they can find several ways besides using guns such as making homemade bombs, etc. Pointing the finger at guns doesn’t solve the problem. Also, I grew up in the MTV generation exposed to violent music, TV and video games and I think most mentally stable individuals aren’t influenced to become violent from listening to music or watching violent movies. We always want to blame something. Reading several articles about mothers with kids with mental illness has gotten me thinking about the source of the problem. How do we effectively treat people with mental illness so tragedies like this are less likely to happen?
That’s the real question that needs to be answered. There are a million ways to kill people so no matter what we ban there will still be crazy people out there hell bent on taking lives.
A gun is just a tool. No different than any other tool that can be used to hurt or kill people. Should we ban baseball bats, the most common tool used to kill people? Oh, how about anything with a sharp edge, or things that can be used to bludgeon someone to death?
It is the people, and the lack of compassion found in many today. More people are likely to stand around filming a violent incident on their cell phones than they are likely step in and help the victim or stop the attack.
As the parent of a murdered child, albeit he was 21, I will never understand how anyone can simply shrug and say, “oh well, it is the gun’s fault,” and move on. It wasn’t a gun that killed my son, it was a man who used the gun as his tool of choice to commit murder. And I can tell you this, if any of those parents who lost children were to have had the opportunity to use a gun to stop that monster, they would have done so in a heart beat. I certainly would have. Because people are supposed to protect the innocent, and not doing so when you have a chance makes you as guilty as the perpetrator.
I carry a gun on me or near me every day with a legal permit to carry. Because I never want anyone else to go through what we went through when we lost our son. My heart is filled with sorrow for those parents in Sandy Hook. May God Bless them.
I’m going to vault my perspective in here, as we have some pretty good discussion going on…
Additional sanctions are good, more hoops to jump through, mental health evaluations to get gun permits… make getting a gun a hard thing. That way, the people who do receive permits are well documented and serious about carrying a weapon. But decent everyday people aren’t the problem. These added hoops don’t help us when there are thousands and thousands of unlicensed weapons being passed around by the criminal underground, or being sold flat out illegally. Even if, at this very moment, owning a gun became immediately illegal and all owners had to surrender their weapons immediately, we’d never find all the guns in America. And there’d still be shootings.
Perhaps we should give more time and attention to the psychological health of our populous. Yes, there will always be a sociopath, but normal people don’t act out like this. Usually, these things are an act of aggression or desperation by a person who doesn’t know how to process their emotions in a healthy manner. If there is an opportunity to stabilize someone and teach them tactics for dealing with life, I believe it should be realized.
No matter what, that doesn’t change the fact that this was a horrible tragedy I hope will never be repeated. Anything that makes this act impossible for someone in the future has my full support.
As always Nick a great post, ir really is so sad, I have cried a lot over this, it really messes me up when I see the parents trying to keep it together whilst talking about their kids… How terrible! I hate that things like this just happen… I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and erase all of the badness in the world… Anyway hun, I nominated you for Blog of the year 2012… go here for more info http://wp.me/p2HTQF-nA
[…] Its Not The Laws, Its Us […]
Some people are just fucked up in the brain dude. We’re always looking for reasons why after the fact. It’s easy to confabulate a story to try to explain what has occurred. But the fact of the matter is this one dude committed the crime. Where’s the personal responsibility? Why are people trying to concoct these theories of what occurred? Understandably, people are hurt and frustrated. I feel much sorrow for those that lost loved ones. You want to try to make sense of it all but there are just some things that cannot be explained. We can’t fix everything but we can try to start the healing process by changing the way we look at things and conduct our day to day lives.
What’s really going to be unfortunate, as what happens when any of these tragedies occur, people are going to be up in arms and mourning and stuff for about another week and then something else is going to happen to take their attention away and people will go back to their daily lives. We’re a fickle ass society like that. The only people who will still care are the ones directly affected by it. They probably had the same feeling like “Oh that’ll never happen here”. So let’s change how we’re living, change how we think. That can be the beginning of something….
[…] I follow posted a succinct piece titled ‘What is Wrong With You People?’ Another blogger posted similar sentiments. I ask that question every freaking day but I can’t seem to come up with a reasonable […]
What’s your source for this statistic?
How do you define “evil people”? People who commit evil acts? Does that include, for example, people with developmental disorders who perhaps never received the support they needed?
people should not be allowed to carry guns, it’s ridiculous, we’re not allowed to in UK! Guns are for killing, killing’s bad 😦
I’m going to step out on a limb here and say if you own a gun it is your duty to teach your spouse and children all about them, how to clean, break them down, put them back together and how to shoot them. This will teach them respect for the weapon and help to teach that guns are not toys. I was taught this and so was my daughter. I was also taught to always check a gun and make sure it was not loaded every time you pick it it, even if you just left it. Guns are not toys, but must be respected for what they are and what they can do.
This is a great point! Before I moved to Florida I lived in Jersey where the only guns you saw were used for a few months during hunting season. This in not the case in Florida where just about everyone carries a gun. One of the first things my older brother taught me when I moved here was how to respect firearms. He took me shooting and showed me how to break down and clean the gun afterwards.
Good to know there are others who feel the same way, thanks.