Wednesday, 26 AUG 2015 :: Guns are a tool of protection

27 AUG 2015 --  I was reading this again in the morning and it was so badly written in parts, I decided to do some small acts of editing.  :-)  I hope this won't be a problem for anyone.
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I think this may be my worst blog so far, it's already 11:15pm and I have been sorting the files on this laptop for hours and hours and hours... transferring them to a flash drive as a separate file.  I am amazed at how long that takes!  It looks like I had almost 4GB of data...  I hope this will help me organize my projects and let me create a better filing system for the days to come.

I watched the news while I was working on my filing project... the one story that really affected me was the man who went back to his old employment after more than a year to kill people... and eventually killed himself.  It seems he was suffering inside himself for many years.  It makes me wonder what caused him to think killing innocent people was the solution to his pain.

We rarely think about the motives behind crimes, about why the crime became the only solution to their problem -- in their mind.  From what I heard, he had a rental car ready and almost made an escape. When he was being captured, he shot himself.  This has prevented us from finding out the answers we need.  Even though I have heard there was a long letter posted about his reasons, we can only guess about what really happened.

I also noted that the media is promoting this event as another reason for gun control.  This seems to be a broken record.  I keep wondering why it is so important to them to take away all guns, which creates a bigger black market than the one that already exists.  If we take away all the guns from all the people, except the military and police [and the bad guys], individual citizens are left helpless and become easy victims to those who don't obey the law, or engage in other forms of coercion.  It isn't a good idea.  As corruption increases because there are no moral foundations in our country (world), even the protective authorities will become criminals.

I don't own a gun, but I would if I had the money, the time to learn how to properly use it/them, and knew how to keep it safe from unwanted uses but ready for emergencies.  To have a ranch or farm, which I have always wanted to do, you need to have guns for protection, for hunting, for processing some animals as a food supply.  I don't think guns are the problem, it's the people who hold them.  Knowing how to use them, and the damage they do, might change the amount of destruction they create.  To some they seem a toy, to others a tool to gain power, and others just want to instill fear to manipulate.  People commit crimes with guns and often never meant to... the situation they were in escalated and fears rose up and pulled the trigger. 

Guns are a tool.  They are an object.  They don't commit the crime, the one that is holding the gun causes the crime.  Cars are a tool, and they kill people because of negligence, bad mechanics, and bad choices by the driver.  We don't take away all the cars in the world because they cause deaths that are just as tragic as the ones caused by guns.

I do believe that the Secret Service, or other bodyguards, carry weapons to protect people who don't carry them.  We arm our police because we want them to be able to protect us from those who want to harm others (purposely or by accident).  Guns have a purpose, and we need them. 
What we have to do is find a way to grow people that don't want to kill, maim, and destroy for personal reasons.


I am sorry this senseless killing has become the media topic for today... I am sorry the dead were so young, about to be married, heading toward bigger careers...  I am sorry there is nothing that could be done to prevent it from happening...  I am sorry the man who held the gun thought striking back at innocent people was the only way to deal with his problems.

I feel a long tirade about the media coming on, so I am going to say one more thing and post this, barely in time, I think.  Before I heard about the deaths, I was wondering about our news sources already.  I realized we hadn't heard anything new about the rivers polluted by mine waste for awhile.  It made me see again how we only know what the media chooses to highlight...  we see something for a few days, maybe a week if it is a really big story, then it disappears and we go on to the next tragic headline.  I don't think this is a good thing.

I have been loving my increasing times of silence... and getting use to not being bombarded nearly 24 hours a day by all the horrors of our world.  I want to know what is happening, but how much do I need to know? 

What really matters to the survival of our lives, nation, earth?  It seems to me the things that are crucial seem to become trivial events.