It has happened again—another person who wanted to kill and/or hurt a lot of people. Listening to some new media, celebrities, and politicians the cure to end this type of killing is to ban guns. They seem to have the idea that the gun walked into the area itself and started firing. Banning guns in their minds will seem to cure massing killings. However, their reasoning is flawed. Guns are only the means used by sick individuals to commit their carnages. If they cannot use guns, they will use something else.
Automobiles kill many more people than guns. In fact, drunk drinkers and/impaired drivers from drugs kills many more people. We have people driving without licenses who kill others as there are driving an auto illegally. So should we also not ban automobiles because some commit crimes while driving?
What these pundits don’t realize is we need to fix people. They are the issue. Today’s America is very divisive, hateful, and rude. Television and newspapers vomit hate. There is no tolerance. In the past, when a president is elected that you don’t agree with or like, you dealt with it and tried to vote him out in the next election cycle. That would hold true for any politician in office. However, in today’s climate, since they don’t like the president, they talk hate all the time and impeachment. They have left the country struggling because they are not doing their true job. Most media outlets have also done the same by choosing to lead the charge. Celebrities in all their wisdom have used their influence to also preach this atmosphere of hate and intolerance. After all, many celebrities are shining stars of how well their personal lives have fared with the drug abuse, relationship failures, temper tantrums, etc. so they are perfected qualified to give advice to their impressionable followers.
There have been many presidents that I have not voted for or even liked. Bushes and O’Bama come to mind. In my mind, both Bushes were elitists with one being extremely stupid and smirky while O’Bama was clearly racist towards white people. However, I lived with them as being president. I respected they were elected and I respected the office they held. I did not agree with most things they did but they were president. However, many now think if they don’t agree with who is elected to an office, they can overthrow the election. They no longer think they have to adhere to the rules. You know that story will change when their person eventually gets elected. That is because they are so narrow-minded they cannot even see to the end of their nose. They are like 1st graders on a playground that never learned the rule of playing nice, sharing, caring, and no bullying. So it is no small wonder that all of their hatred has filtered down over the years to the common person. The common person sees that politician and celebrities have no boundaries so therefore that is acceptable.
I also see video games being blamed. But what about television and the abrasive atmosphere it embraces? Have they not seen what they broadcast? One murder show after another or a super hero movie just overwhelmingly full of needless violence but yet they criticize video games? Are they saying that video games are real instead of being fantasy as supposedly super hero movies are? Many television shows are over the top. Many give step-by-step guides on how to commit a crime. They feed the fascination in society for the morbid and the ill. The news media is also guilty of fueling hatred and the need for some to commit such heinous crimes by their constant atmosphere of hatred and their sensationalizing of the subsequent crime that was committed because of the toxic atmosphere created by society in general.
It is not young people who have the issue of not respecting life or really anything in general. Older people are guilty also. In the past 15 years, society has greatly changed. Too many people are no longer kind or even polite. There is certainly a lack of respect for our fellow human being. I think this lack of respect is evident in any walk of life and not just in the medical community as I have written about in many blogs. It exists everywhere.
Just this last week, I parked my slightly older Lexus next to a cart corral to protect it from being banged on both sides. I hugged the cart corral. My Lexus is immaculate as I take care of my vehicles. My 80+ years old mother was in the vehicle. A 400+ pound man, older with his wife in a wheelchair was parked in the vehicle to the left of my SUV. We were not in a handicapped space. The man pushed his wife in the wheelchair up between our vehicles with her whining to be closer. She was also very large. So all the way up the left side of my immaculate vehicle I now have paint scratches, dents, and scuffs. Not only because he pushed a wheelchair all up where there was no room (I was very far away from the left line on my side), but also because once there he throw up the metal basket so it hit the side of my vehicle and damaged the paint. My 80+ year old mother got out to confront him. He told her he didn’t do it and really didn’t care. He got in his car and left. My mother didn’t know what else to do. If I had been there, it would have been a different story. Because of what happened to my husband and me when he was medically and sexually assaulted, I no longer take crap. Be polite but be firm. This episode demonstrates that too many average citizens do not care and will not take responsibility for their actions. They also feel entitled and have no respect for others. If those people have children, you can bet those children are also lacking in compassion and general civility. It is no wonder our medical community is so cold, callous, abusive, uncompassionate, etc. It is also no wonder we have people who enjoy inflicting mass pain on people they do not even know.
As far as I can see, guns do not kill but people do. If they don’t use a gun, they will use something else to inflict pain and damage. Fixing the atmosphere in which we live is the answer. Everyone needs to take a good, hard look in the mirror. Do they like what they see? For those who have been affected by tragedy, their lives will never be the same.