Guns Everywhere!

Another shooting happened in my hometown recently and this one is very close to where I live.  It was not a fatal shooting, but still it is totally uncalled for.  That makes six incidents in the last four months and it is getting to be too much.  Unfortunately these incidents are all related to the first shooting, and I think gang related, so I fear we are just at the start.

I went on a community walk about a week ago after the last shooting, which was fatal.  The idea of the walk was to bring awareness to the recent violence and get a sense to what has happened.  We walked around to the sites where previous incidents happened and put little memorials there and said a few words about the victims. It was a way to show a united force about how this small segment of the community feels about the issue and it did bring some awareness to the people who saw us walking. Overall it did nothing at all toward the problem but it was a nice way to spend the afternoon and to commiserate with other residents who feel the same.

There are no easy answers when it comes to guns.  As far as I am concerned they are too easily attained regardless of the laws we have in place currently.  The 2^nd amendment people scream that we have a right to own guns and object to laws preventing them from having weapons.  Criminals get guns from other criminals and all the laws in the world don’t seem to work for that.  The mentally ill can get guns legally or from family members and no one really knows if they are going to go off the deep end because they rarely have criminal records. 

Guns represent power to most people and for the most part, in my opinion, Americans feel powerless and trust nobody. Everyone is considered our enemy for which we must arm ourselves against.  That kind of attitude is not going to change easily and will take generations to breed out. The media does their fair share of glamorizing the use of guns but I personally don’t see that as a reason why people want them, moreover I feel that the media is just reflecting reality. Bottom line is that this is an issue that has no easy solution and no one is going to win.  It may sound hopeless but I think we are at the point of the darkness before the light and things will get better eventually.  There just might not be enough people left to care after all the shooting is done.