Gun Laws On The Table?

        The violence we see spreading from shopping malls in Oregon, to movie theaters in Colorado, to college campuses in Virginia, to elementary schools in Connecticut, is being spawned by the toxic view of a violent popular culture, a growing mental health crisis and the proliferation of combat-style weapons.
                 There are alot of us that are for stricter gun controls but also know we have a second amendment right to bear arms that we cannot afford to give away, so where do we go from here. Some believe we should ban assault weapons. Some think a limit on the number of rounds people can purchase.
        This morning I put myself in the shoes of a Congressman and thought to myself, if I had the power to change things, what policies would instill into a bill. What I came up with was that if even just the principle had a concealed weapon, then things would have ended better.
        After Columbine, we installed better security measures. We taught teachers how to identify situations and keep students safe. Teachers had to learn to counsel student victims of bullying to prevent volatile situations and how to handle naturally occuring disasters. Now, in the wake of a tragedy we have never seen before, we should train teachers in another important aspect of a quickly failing society.
        To shoot to kill. Along with a college degree and a clean criminal record, teachers should have a CHL(Concealed Handgun License) and a handgun locked in a safe in their desks I think violence in schools would cease.
        Sure, violence will always arise in places because of the dramatization of violence and guns in music, movies, and art, but Lanza and the Trench Coat Mafia, would have thought better of walking into a school to massacre children when 100 school staff is packing protection.
       When it comes to mental health issues in people, this is complicated, we’ve got to find a way to create a society in which those closest to people in trouble, mentally, acknowledge that and help them secure assistance.
        As for violence in the entertainment and video game industry, I think we really do have to reopen the conversation and go back and ask ourselves, is there more we can do?

Gun Control Laws

        This morning evil visited Conneticut and brought tragedy with it. More than a dozen children woke up, grabbed their backpacks, hopped on the bus to their elementary school, and were dead before lunch.
        The shooting spree lasted less than 10 minutes, but that was long enough to leave multiple families childless. We are heartbroken, yes, all of us, but in the wake of tragedy comes an opportunity.
        We have the opportunity now to discuss stricter gun laws. I have heard people say now is not the time to discuss the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School being a precedent for gun laws. I disagree, because ever since Columbine, it should be all we talked about until it changed something.
        If the teachers had been allowed to carry a concealed weapon on the premises this could have ended better. I know some of you are weary of the teachers carrying a handgun would be more volatile, but think about it, it’s never the teachers that shoot up the school, it is always a student or disgruntled former student.
       Jose Luis Nunez had a handgun in order to protect his son. The 4 year-old accidentally shot himself in the face with it in Houston on Tuesday. Joseph V. Loughrey had one for the same reason, and his 7-year-old son, Craig, died on
Saturday outside of Pittsburgh when that handgun accidentally went off while the boy was getting into his safety seat in front of a gun store.
       And that was just this week. The same week that the NRA proudly tweeted it had reached 1.7 million “likes” on Facebook.
        We cherish individuality in America. We see raising children as no one else’s business, and we have never managed to band together as a “parenting” bloc. It is
time. Guns are a parenting issue and we need to control them in the name of the children who died this morning. Even more, we need to do it in the name of their mothers and fathers.
       So cry today. Comfort your kids. Curse, and pray. Then pick up the phone, a pen, a keyboard, or your checkbook and make your demands heard for stricter gun laws. All day and every day. But most especially, today.