February 23, 2018

Yeah, and I slogged through a foot of snow to get to school - uphill both directions

It looks to be another soggy early spring/late winter day here in the heartland. It is Friday, and that is never a bad thing.

Today marks the first spring training game for the Cubbies and the start of a new season. I usually find spring training games unwatchable, but I may give this one a try. Well, I may listen to it, if it is on the MLB app, since I will still be on the work clock. There is no TV in my office.

I had an interesting conversation with my wife and son at supper last night. They are firm in conviction that no one under 21 should be able to buy a gun. They were incredulous that I shot my first rifle at 11 years old. They could not believe I shot rifles and shotguns at Boy Scout camp all through my teens. I did not even tell them that I had a B.B. gun before that or that I was hunting at 16 and 17 and started long after some of my friends.

You would be proud, I didn’t argue with them, my default when anyone disagrees with my obviously correct positions; rather, I shrugged and said we would have to disagree and changed the subject.  The thing is, it never occurred to me to shoot at, or even point a gun at anyone — even at eleven years old. How old were you when you shot your first gun?

Perhaps that is the difference, I first learned to shoot under very strict, safety-first conditions. I learned a gun is a dangerous tool. I no more would have played with one than a saw or axe. I also carried a knife for most of my youth, I never once pulled it out to show off or use as a weapon. Not even in one of my many fights on the playground or backyard. It just never occurred to me.

It seems for today’s America personal responsibility is lost. We somehow have to regulate stupid, evil, and irresponsibility out of society. A kid shoots up a school and it is the fault of the gun. Somehow an evil individual uses a tool wrong and as a society we are at fault for making that tool available. Then we exacerbate the nonsense by blaming a range of social and perhaps mental problems. We limit the rights of the good and law-abiding to try and stop it from happening. In truth, an evil person did an evil thing and a whole library of laws wouldn’t have prevented it.

Ah, I didn’t want to go there today. Have a great Friday.

5 comments:

Cappy said...

Only one foot? It was 10 feet in July when I was going to school!

Carole said...

I suspect, too, that there really isn't anyway to stop these things from happening. We like to think there is. It seems to be copy cat, and perhaps in time there will be a new way for evil to manifest itself.

Joe said...

Crappy, you have all that lake effect snow

Anonymous said...

I was 11 or 12 when my dad took me hunting. I had a bb gun but rarely used it. All the guns belonged to my dad, I didn't own my own gun until I was in the Army. It is not a gun problem it is a parenting, pc correct, no dicipline problem. It never dawned on me to smart mouth my teachers, I knew what would happen.

James Old Guy

B said...

The issue is manifold, but most of them stem from parenting (and/or a lack of a DAD figure). Look into things from past shootings. Broken homes every one of them.

Add in the fact that we don't DO anything to kids when they do things that would have gotten our asses beaten. Time Outs don't work for boys. But if that is the sum of your discipline, then you really never learn right from wrong.

Add in the fact that mental health issues are not addressed early, and that cops and other authority figures really can't use the system to put people who are a danger to themselves or society AWAY any longer, but we simply (sometimes) drug them into compliance and you have a recipe for what we got.

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