I’ve never liked dealing with an armchair quarterback who wants to tell you everything that is wrong about something but doesn’t have a solution and isn’t willing to step forward and make an effort to make things better.
But, that’s what I feel like every time I mistakenly watch the news and hear about another shooting.
I’m not currently a gun owner. We got rid of them when we had our first grandchild, but I have a good friend who is a hunter and owns guns for that purpose. I probably know people who have handguns in their homes for what they deem security purposes.
But, I’m at a loss to understand how “make my day” has become a mantra for everyone who is irritated about something or maybe nothing at all.
I grew up in the era of watching westerns at the movies. I still enjoy a good western, but even Wyatt Earp knew guns had to be checked before going to the saloon for a night of drinking.
We’ve become desensitized to mass shootings either by terrorists or by our neighbors because they now happen several times a week.
All I have are questions instead of answers.
Have we lost our minds with people walking the streets carrying automatic weapons? Do we need to revisit the Second Amendment? Did Thomas Jefferson and John Adams really envision the average citizen openly carrying guns that shoot hundreds of bullets just for the heck of it? Will either slate of candidates help us?
I’m really not trying to incite a conversation on the NRA or the Second Amendment because that can get ugly and ugly is not what I’m after. I’m just wondering about our safety to travel outside and inside the US and our ability to go about our lives without being shot because of an unending list of potential reasons.
I guess it comes right back around to the fact that as I sit in my chair in the relative safety of my home, I’m constantly looking for an answer to the violence all around us. I worry for my grandchildren and the world they will grow up in.
Now that I’ve admitted I have no solutions to the state of the world, I guess I’ll make some decisions I can handle. Blueberries or banana on my Cheerios, water or not water the tomatoes, weed or leave it until tomorrow, maybe start sandwiching that baby quilt, do errands this morning or this afternoon, stop at Salvation Army and see what repurposing finds they have – these things I can handle.
Stay safe this week and enjoy your family, friends, jobs, gardens, sewing machines, or whatever else puts a smile on your face. 🙂
Well said. Our forefathers must be rolling in their graves over many toxic things ruining their and our once feasible and attainable dream of America. Her very foundation and every tenet of her guiding laws and amendments have been willfully skewed. It’s scary what some entitled minority malcontents who aren’t the least bit interested in the common good, can get enacted or maintained as “rights.”
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I’ve been to a couple of presidential homes including Washington, Jefferson, and Adams and mass burial sites like Gettysburg and First Battle of Bull Run at Manasses. And, never once did I get the feeling that more wars or more shootings were the answer. I did, however, get a cold chill contemplating all we lost. Right now I’m concerned we are loosing that which our foundation was built upon.
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We’ve been losing steadily for 16 years, it seems, but it may well have been for much longer.
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Some well thought out enforceable regulations would surely help. I doubt there’s a cure, but unlike We The People, too many in power seem content to throw their hands up and say there’s nothing they can do.
I vote go with bananas, you water the tomatoes, leave the weeds for a cooler day, and start sandwiching the quilt. Tuesdays are quieter for errands. Enjoy freedom of choice 🙂
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🙂 Pretty much what I decided. 🙂 Well thought out would be good.
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You worry for your grandchildren, but you probably also help make sure they are taught respect and consideration for others and, maybe even for the opinion of others…
Sorry, Judy. I’ll stop. I won’t bring my rant to your door.
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You can rant at my door at time, Dan. You certainly mention words that we could all embrace – respect, consideration, and the appreciation of another’s opinion. That would get us a long way on this road wouldn’t it.
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Me and a million or three other people do not understand why owning a gun has fewer controls than owning a car. If you put the same degree of oversight into gun ownership as vehicles (road test, eye test, licence, registration and insurance, please), I think you’d see a major improvement. I think most sane people DO agree. Gun manufacturers put huge sums of money into fighting basic, sensible laws to limit gun ownership to responsible (and sane!) people.
And we agree: we are in danger of becoming desensitized to gun violence. Eventually, we’ll just shrug is off. What a terrible thought!
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The issues you mention regarding owning a car just seem sensible to me and except for the powers that lobby I do not understand why something like that couldn’t apply to owning a gun. If you don’t have anything to hide, what is the big deal. Being held responsible seems better than these continual mass shootings.
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So, we put police in charge of protecting us and we arm them with military grade weapons so they can get the job done effectively. Then, all of a sudden it’s “okay” for the public to access assault rifles that penetrate body armor and render the police defenseless. Go figure.
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That’s my problem, I can’t figure it out in my head.
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Saw a PSA showing a modern day man walking into an office armed with a musket. The available weapon in colonial days. He’s going thru all the motions to load while people are running out. At least it pointed out the gun in use at the time the 2nd amendment was written vs the multi bullet load clips that enable these slaughters. Well regulated militia my sweet grandma! Give up these overkill options.
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Yes, colonial days and muskets to protect your home and property, I totally get. I get rifles for hunting food for your family and handguns to supposedly protect when someone breaks down your door. Why anyone except the military needs clips with hundreds of bullets just boggles my mind.
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You ask great questions, Judy: “Have we lost our minds with people walking the streets carrying automatic weapons? Do we need to revisit the Second Amendment? Did Thomas Jefferson and John Adams really envision the average citizen openly carrying guns that shoot hundreds of bullets just for the heck of it?”
I suspect that you, I, and others of our generation, yearn for peace. We’re not likely to join a picket line. But I’d much rather people picket — as many young people did in my time, and as they are doing once again – than grab a gun and shoot people.
It must be particularly disturbing to Americans when people who are decorated war veterans return home and kill innocent police officers – and when ‘bad-apples’ in the police kill innocent civilians.
My sympathies, Judy, from a Canadian blogger friend.
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It is interesting you mention a picket line. I lived in Kansas the majority of my adult life and never saw a person carrying a picket sign. We moved to NH and lived on the western side in the small town of Keene for a while. It is a beautiful little New England town straight out of postcard with a lovely downtown area with a circle/roundabout. The first Saturday we drove downtown there was a whole line of people stretched around the circle with picket signs for every topic you can imagine from ‘no war’ to ‘choice of designated hitter in baseball.’ I can embrace that. You feel strongly about something, you make your sign, you spend some of your time expressing your dissatisfaction, and you allow others to think about whether they are concerned or not. I find that somewhat of a learning experience for all and would actually drive down there to see what the current topics were on a particular weekend. There are several sites on this side of the state where they do the same thing. It sure beats what we are seeing on the news today. I just think we need to ‘think’ about where this has all taken us, the resulting tragedies, and where it is leading us on both sides of the aisle as you mentioned.
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I agree with everything you said. You need to “get out of my head”!!! I pretty much avoid watching the news….however my husband is glued to it. I read a LOT. Like you, I worry about my granddaughter and what this country will have to offer her by way of a safe future.
My dad taught me how to drive. Before my road test he said, “I’m not worried about you behind the wheel, it’s the other idiots on the road.” And now when we go to a movie, a restaurant, a concert, a parade, to school or church, it’s “the other idiots” we have to watch out for. But most of them look just like any of us.
The violence in this country/world, is overwhelming. I wonder what our founding fathers would think if they could come back for just one day.
It’s mind-boggling x 1,000! Sadly, I have no solution to the problem either. Maybe “the other idiots” will miraculously develop some working brain cells and they will cease and desist. One can only hope.
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I think it may be a ‘maturity’ issue that we are thinking the same thing. 🙂 Years past if I was in a large crowd or at the movies, I’d look for an exit sign and think that was enough. We had lunch out today and as I looked around I realized there really is only one door. Sure probably back in the kitchen somewhere is a delivery door but if you had to get out of the place all 75 or so of the diners would be trying to get out one door. Will we require restaurants to have two doors so people can flee? It’s is a dangerous world out there and that’s too bad because there are wonderful people to meet, things to see and adventures to be had. We shouldn’t have to be concerned about being near an open door so we can flea for our lives.
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Thank you for articulating so well the thoughts I have had. I do believe people should have guns for hunting animals that they will then use for meat. Many of us who are not interested in owning any kind of gun are not saying no guns. I don’t believe that our forefathers would be in agreement that any civilian should own an assault weapon. I don’t know what kind of world we are leaving to our little grandchildren. I think steps can and should immediately be taken to curb the problem but I don’t think it will ever disappear entirely from our world. Our hobbies and pets are especially comforting at this time. Maybe passing along hobbies that we enjoy can help others who will also enjoy them to feel that measure of comfort too.
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You bring up an interesting issue with regard to pets and hobbies. I wonder what the statistics would show about those who have such rage and commit these atrocities.
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I don’t know that we have become desensitized. Here in Australia, where we have very strict gun control, we shake our heads and wonder why it’s happened again each time we see another tragic event elsewhere in the world on the news.
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Maybe our powers that be need a road trip to Australia to learn how to do it better. 🙂
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I’m sure they’ve talked in the past. Our heads of state seem to have good relationships.
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Commenting as an Australian, I agree with all the comments made here Judy, and can I add, there is a lot of fear and confusion worldwide at the moment, and we notice so much unemployment amongst young people when we travel these days….so there are perhaps many things contributing to the gun law problem in the US. We have always enjoyed visiting your vast and beautiful country, so our very best wishes for peace and harmony.(world wide!)
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You make another good point about unemployment. Not having a job with enough income to take care of yourself and loved ones can certainly add to an individual’s frustration with his/her surroundings.
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Amen. I was going to say – but the first commenter beat me to it – that our forefathers must be rolling over in their graves. I’m pretty sure this isn’t what they had envisioned for our country.
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I certainly agree that our Founding Fathers are probably rolling over in their graves. We’ve moved so far from what they fought for and envisioned. There’s some ground between banning guns and allowing anything for anyone. But bad people get guns no matter the laws. I think one problem is the lack of a sense of right and wrong and how to deal with frustrations.
janet
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I think you are right. People don’t communicate face to face as much as they use to and have to negotiate through difference. Kids also play a lot of video games where they shoot people but there are always more popping up. It’s a different world and I think we may need different guidelines.
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So very true what you wrote! Thanks for speaking out! I wish I had the answers as well! I pray and pray!
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Prayer is good, and sometimes it is all that stands between us and the feeling of hopelessness.
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The answer is us – all of us who just won’t/can’t stand for this anymore or for the politicians that refuse to put even the most common sense actions in place. If not us, then who? For the next generation’s sake, it has to be us.
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Yes, you are right. Wouldn’t it be great if enough of us made our concerns known and we could see a positive change.
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Oy. I don’t even know where to start. I used to wonder what it would take, to convince Americans that we needed stronger gun controls, but all the bad things I could imagine have pretty much happened and we still have no gun controls. No reasonable discussion seems possible on the subject–the people on each side talk past each other–so, like you, I turn to the small, productive things that let me feel I have some control. And I look for exits in public places.
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Who knew instead of watching Matt Dillon try to maintain the peace on the streets of Dodge City that we would be living it.
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People used to get into fistfights…now they whip out a gun and kill each other. OR like the other day in a Pittsburgh suburb, they just drive by and shoot a little six year old girl in the head. 😦
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I couldn’t bring myself to hit ‘like’ on your comment because that experience is a person’s worst nightmare. Terrible.
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Judy, I read your reflection and the comments this morning and have taken all with me through the day, along with the day’s horror story from France. Your first question is all: have we lost our minds? Yes.Those things the mind used to do — separate fact from opinion, disdain argument by innuendo, distinguish the difference between person and idea, recognize that a loud argument doth not a debate make — seem lost. It is very comforting to read in these comments that there are real people who value words and use them. Powerful weapons, words.
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This topic of violence just hits you right in your soul because you know the grief that is being experience by all those involved on every side of the issue. When you see a new one pop up on your radar, it just knocks you down again. Words are powerful, and I’m hoping they will prevail.
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I hope so too.
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I don’t normally comment on posts about the issues facing Americas right now. Since I’m not American, I feel like I don’t have that right.
But your post is so compelling in its expression of dismay. Add me to the list of people who agree with you. I hope that eventually sanity will prevail because the alternative is too frightening.
…. in meantime, I will continue to shake my head in disbelief every day when I listen to the news.
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Shaking your head is sometimes all one can do. Well, that and avoid the news altogether which I do lots of times because I just can’t handle any more of the same.
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My husband is a news junkie and I’m subjected to the news whether I like it or not. Most I don’t
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Every time I read news I thing :what happened to the world? You’re right Judy we have questions and no answers.
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I could not have said any of this any better. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand all the shooting. I don’t understand any of the political nightmare currently going on. This is sure not where I thought we would be when we were growing up. I thought we would have this whole peace thing figured out. These guys can’t even extend a hand. And all the hate… No more news.
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We’ve gone backwards so many years it makes you want to cry. I’m avoiding the news as much as I can.
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I don’t get the whole gun issue (I’m one of those who wishes they were never invented) and I agree we seem to be going backwards. The media seems to make things worse, makes it like we are killing each other off left and right, and then almost every tragedy is followed by copycat events. Other than seeing headlines online, I don’t watch any news. Thanks for your wise words.
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