Now that you have that little recap, I am going to go on a rant about the things I am SO tired of hearing about since this incident.
Here are a few of the things I have been hearing:
1.) We need more gun control
2.) If this person had Jesus and God in his life, this wouldn't have happened
3.) This person was CRAZY
4.) Violent movies, TV shows and video games cause people to lash out in these ways
5.) The gunman was only doing this to gain notoriety and have his face plastered all over the news
5.) The gunman was only doing this to gain notoriety and have his face plastered all over the news
So, now to tackle the first one. If we had more gun control, things like this wouldn't happen. Well, yes and no. While I agree some things about gun control need to be changed or altered, I don't think making guns completely illegal is the answer. I know that is not what a lot of people who are calling for gun control are asking for, but... you get what I am saying. I was listening to Simon on Talk Radio 1040 this weekend on my way to a friend's house for the weekend (two-hour trip). He stated he wanted to change the gun laws... but what he wanted to do was have at least twenty percent of teachers trained in shooting firearms and be able to carry a firearm during school hours to ensure safety of the students. There is actually a picture out there of a school in the Middle East of a teacher doing just that, and the school shootings in that country are much lower than those of the US. This, in my opinion, isn't a bad idea, but at the same time, there would have to be hours and hours of safety training, not just in the handling of those firearms, but also in how to keep them away from the students and to be sure a student doesn't try to take the gun away from the teacher, etc, etc. It would definitely take a while.
Now, one of weapons the gunman was carrying was a Bushmaster (one of the three weapons he was carrying). From what I understand, this type of weapon is a semi-automatic assault rifle. It carries more than twenty rounds in a clip and is able to fire back to back rather quickly depending on how fast the shooter is pulling the trigger. The question here is, why in the world would any lay-person of the world NEED to have a weapon of this type? Why would anyone need more than twenty rounds at a time? Hunters don't even want things like that. I just don't understand why these types of weapons need to be made available to people of the public. The other two weapons that the gunman had with him were hand guns. One was a ten milometer Glock, and the other was a nine milometer Sig Sauer. To me, those mean nothing other than the fact they are hand guns with specific measurements of bullets required (just about like any other gun). I feel as though those who are responsible enough to sanely possess and carry a hand gun have every right to do so. My father has a few himself, including a shot gun. He has never had a problem with them. He keeps one in the glove box of his car, just in case, and one in his night stand, just in case. Otherwise, he never really touches them. Like the old saying goes, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. The bad choices of the few, ruin the rules and laws for the rest of us.
And what's more, making guns illegal is not going to entirely solve the problem of gun violence or get them off the streets. Firstly, if someone wants to kill someone badly enough, they will kill them. They will find a way to do it, whether it be with a knife or their own bare hands. When someone wants to do something bad enough, they will find a way to do it. Which leads me to my next point... If someone wants a gun badly enough when they are illegal, they will find a way to get them. Putting more laws on guns and who is allowed to have them and who isn't is going to open up the black market like crazy for others. In my opinion, it's just like drugs... whether or not they are illegal, people will always find a way to get them. And in most cases, it will always be the bad apples that get the guns instead of the responsible ones who want them for whatever reason other than trying to scare others or threaten them for no good reason. And keep in mind, the gunman stole these weapons from his mother (who is rumored to be an avid gun collector). He had been to at least one store (Dick's Sporting Goods) in the days prior to the shootings trying to buy a gun and was denied. So, like I said... people will find a way. Granted they were more easily accessible for him to get to because his mother had them, but think about the Aurora Theater gunman who only needed access to the internet to get what he wanted...
Thanks to a friend for sharing this article with me, I had the opportunity to read and almost confirm all of what I stated above. Well, maybe not confirm, but definitely back up my points. Here is the article >>
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund
Thanks to a friend for sharing this article with me, I had the opportunity to read and almost confirm all of what I stated above. Well, maybe not confirm, but definitely back up my points. Here is the article >>
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund
Gun regulation may be necessary in some aspects, but to start making them illegal and putting harsh restrictions on them is not the whole answer.
Now, onto my second point from the beginning. I have seen/heard a lot of people saying if this guy had God in his life, he wouldn't have done this, etc... But do we really even know what his religious views were? Probably not. In my opinion, religion has NOTHING to do with what happened. The argument is that people who have God and Jesus are moral people with a good head on their shoulders. But, I know plenty of people who have no religion, either being agnostic or atheist, who are WONDERFUL people. They have great morals and greats heads on their shoulders and are able to make wise decisions and treat others with great respect. I also know people who do have religion that are the exact same. On the other end, I know quite a few people who are religious, who are Christians, who claim they have God and Jesus in their lives, yet they hate homosexuals, they hate Jews and Blacks and other religious groups. Ever heard of the Westboro Baptist Church? Extreme example, I understand, but they claim to have God and Jesus in their lives after all... Just because you are a Christian does not make you a better, more moral person than someone else. And just because you do not have a religion does not make you any less moral than anyone else. That's the funny thing about groups of people. You can generalize all you want about the group, but more often than not, people will not fit the preconceived notion of what you think they are. More often than not, people will not fit the mold you think the entire group should fit.
It's amazing that religion always seems to be brought up in tragedies such as these. You can seek solace in God and Jesus all you want to help yourself cope with this tragedy if you wish, but to condemn someone you really know nothing about because of their religion, or lack thereof, is not very Christian-like. As I said before, we really don't know all too much about the gunman's life, let alone his religious views. So can we please just DROP the religion/Jesus/God argument?
What's next? Oh, yes. This guy was CRAZY! That is very politically correct of you to say! ...Not... What we do know, or at least from what we heard, is the gunman had a form of Autism. Does this mean his Autism caused him to do something like this? No. There is a huge spectrum of Autism, and after a while, it gets pretty confusing because there are high-functioning Autistic people and low-functioning Autistic people. I have no idea on what end of the spectrum the gunman was on. But what I DO know about Autism is that people with this disorder experience very strong emotions. And what is the most important thing to know when you experience strong emotions? Regulation of said emotions. If someone is not properly taught how to regulate their emotions, they are obviously going to have episodes, regardless of their mental function and capacity. So, if it is true that the gunman had a form of Autism, this whole situation could have been brought on by the fact he was experiencing some strong emotions and wasn't sure how to deal with those emotions. After all, it is rumored he had gotten into some type of argument with four teachers a day or two prior to the shootings. He could have still been fuming from that situation and, without his ability to properly regulate his emotions and think clearly and in a problem-solving manner, decided to do what he did. However; that is not to say all people with forms of Autism are not able to make such problem-solving decisions.
And this isn't just about Autism... it's about mental health in general which will help me tie my fourth point into the above paragraph. The problem with society today is we don't help those who are most in need of our help. Yes, we have welfare and things such as that, but there are a lot of people who are on welfare who don't need it... who are mooching off of the government in any way they can because they don't want to work. We will always complain that there is never enough government funding going into various programs. But I will tell you one thing for sure... we do NOT have enough money, whether government or otherwise, going into mental health.
Most people are deterred from seeking a profession in the mental health field because the pay-out is less than desired. Which means that the people who are mentally ill are not getting the help they need because the funding isn't there. Regardless of the fact that the gunman had Autism, there was a deeper, darker underlying problem going on with his thought processes. Problems for which he never received help. Who is to blame for that? I am not really sure. It could be that his mother denied that he needed help and didn't want to get it for him. It could be that his mother wanted to get help for him, but he refused, and being a twenty-year-old adult, he doesn't need to listen to his mother anymore. Who really knows why this guy didn't receive the help that he needed, and there is not one thing in particular that made this massacre happen which is why I have my fourth point...
People are always complaining that violent TV shows, movies and video games cause those who watch/play them to become violent as well. I don't know how to put this lightly... but that is bull sh*t. Out of the millions of people who watch those things and play those games... how many of them become violent themselves and engage in the behaviors that happened on Friday the 14th? Far too few to even think that it is the sole contributing factor. What a lot of it comes down to is nature vs. nurture. Sometimes, not matter how great of an environment a child comes from, they become corrupt by no fault of their parents. And other times, the environment they come from has almost everything to do with how they turn out.
But what is more important to understand is those who commit these heinous acts and blame their love for violent shows and video games are mentally disturbed. They have a distorted perception of reality, and unless they get help for it, something bad is almost bound to happen. Those people do not understand the difference between what is real and what they perceive to be real. So they do what they please because they think it fits in with their perception of reality. If violent shows and video games had as much of an effect on the way our society behaves as people claim, we would have a lot more problems than we do now.
And my fifth point can be tied into the last two. In my opinion, and by no statistical background do I say this, more often than not, I feel as though becoming a media sensation is the last thing on someone's mind when they do something like that. They couldn't care less about what the media is going to say about them. Why do I think that? Because people who do things such as what happened in Newtown, Connecticut is because they are mentally disturbed. Something happened that set them off to the point where they decided to make the choices they made. The people who want media attention are those who commit acts such as what happened on 09/11/2001. They wanted America to know how much hate they had for us. And it worked. The gunman in Newtown was obviously targeting an elementary school, but whether or not he had intended to go after just the adults or children is unknown. He was returning to a place in which he experienced a situation that sent him off the deep end... to the point of no return.
What this situation DOES tell us about the gunman is the immense importance of supporting our mental health system. This gunman was experiencing something so psychologically abnormal, and it could have been prevented had someone paid attention to the warning signs, no matter how briefly they were present.
I apologize for my terrible writing in this post, but my mind is all over the place regarding this incident. It's hard enough to lose a family member or someone close to you, but to lose a child that has their entire life ahead of them, is unfathomable. My heart and my deepest sympathies go out to the families who lost their loved ones and children and the community of Newtown. It is unfortunate that something like this has to happen in order to prompt our nation to look at what needs to be changed.
Most people are deterred from seeking a profession in the mental health field because the pay-out is less than desired. Which means that the people who are mentally ill are not getting the help they need because the funding isn't there. Regardless of the fact that the gunman had Autism, there was a deeper, darker underlying problem going on with his thought processes. Problems for which he never received help. Who is to blame for that? I am not really sure. It could be that his mother denied that he needed help and didn't want to get it for him. It could be that his mother wanted to get help for him, but he refused, and being a twenty-year-old adult, he doesn't need to listen to his mother anymore. Who really knows why this guy didn't receive the help that he needed, and there is not one thing in particular that made this massacre happen which is why I have my fourth point...
People are always complaining that violent TV shows, movies and video games cause those who watch/play them to become violent as well. I don't know how to put this lightly... but that is bull sh*t. Out of the millions of people who watch those things and play those games... how many of them become violent themselves and engage in the behaviors that happened on Friday the 14th? Far too few to even think that it is the sole contributing factor. What a lot of it comes down to is nature vs. nurture. Sometimes, not matter how great of an environment a child comes from, they become corrupt by no fault of their parents. And other times, the environment they come from has almost everything to do with how they turn out.
But what is more important to understand is those who commit these heinous acts and blame their love for violent shows and video games are mentally disturbed. They have a distorted perception of reality, and unless they get help for it, something bad is almost bound to happen. Those people do not understand the difference between what is real and what they perceive to be real. So they do what they please because they think it fits in with their perception of reality. If violent shows and video games had as much of an effect on the way our society behaves as people claim, we would have a lot more problems than we do now.
And my fifth point can be tied into the last two. In my opinion, and by no statistical background do I say this, more often than not, I feel as though becoming a media sensation is the last thing on someone's mind when they do something like that. They couldn't care less about what the media is going to say about them. Why do I think that? Because people who do things such as what happened in Newtown, Connecticut is because they are mentally disturbed. Something happened that set them off to the point where they decided to make the choices they made. The people who want media attention are those who commit acts such as what happened on 09/11/2001. They wanted America to know how much hate they had for us. And it worked. The gunman in Newtown was obviously targeting an elementary school, but whether or not he had intended to go after just the adults or children is unknown. He was returning to a place in which he experienced a situation that sent him off the deep end... to the point of no return.
What this situation DOES tell us about the gunman is the immense importance of supporting our mental health system. This gunman was experiencing something so psychologically abnormal, and it could have been prevented had someone paid attention to the warning signs, no matter how briefly they were present.
I apologize for my terrible writing in this post, but my mind is all over the place regarding this incident. It's hard enough to lose a family member or someone close to you, but to lose a child that has their entire life ahead of them, is unfathomable. My heart and my deepest sympathies go out to the families who lost their loved ones and children and the community of Newtown. It is unfortunate that something like this has to happen in order to prompt our nation to look at what needs to be changed.
