Don Roach: There Will Be Blood

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Don Roach, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

 

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I can’t ever get used to headlines like the ones we’ve seen in recent months:

Mass Shooting at Colorado Movie Theater Leaves 12 Dead, Suspect in Custody

What Happened in the Newtown School Shooting

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At least 19 injured in New Orlean’s Mother’s Day shooting

Boston Marathon bombing kills 3, injures over 140

and most recently, 5 dead, including gunman, in shooting rampage near Los Angeles

It’s like every week there’s some kind of mass shooting, terrorist related or otherwise. I don’t want this to sound cruel, but it’s a question that has entered my mind recently, are we more at risk from terrorists abroad who hate America or from those within America who, for lack of a better phrase, go off the deep end?

I mean random shootings at schools, parades, movie theaters, and nearly everywhere you turn somebody is trying to shoot somebody! When do we start to ask ourselves why and look for solutions to stop the frequency of these senseless acts?

I think one of the problems we have is the conversation between Democrats and Republicans every time one of these situations arises. Here’s how it goes:

Random Democrat (RD): Oh my God! The violence is so senseless, we need to get semi-automatic weapons off the street!

Random Republican (RR): What are you talking about, you idiot? I have a right to my guns!

RD: Do you really need a gun that can shoot about 10-15 bullets a second to protect you against an invader in your home?

RR: How many of these guns are owned by law abiding citizens? How many!!?!? You’re trying to take guns away from law abiding citizens because a few bad apples go nuts? What’s next, you’ll take my right to vote away because some people commit voter fraud?

And on and on and on it goes round in circles and never stops. I think both sides are really missing the issue. In my opinion, it’s not about having more strict gun laws or taking semi-automatic weapons away from regular joe citizens. Instead, and I know this is a novel concept, let’s look at why people are resorting to random (and some not so random) acts of violence to resolve whatever issue they are facing.

We need to address that so that our children don’t have worry about sitting in class and having a classmate come through the door with a gun, semi-automatic or otherwise, and shoot everybody in the room. Let’s just think about this, if a shooter had a non-semi-automatic handgun, he kills 4-5 people instead of 10-20. Yes, that’s a huge material difference, but for the families of those 4-5 people who died, their lives are still destroyed.

We have to address the root of the problem and it’s not easy. I mean, if you’re a kid and you overhear a conversation by another kid in school talking about hating the world, are you supposed to turn that kid in? Or even if you’re an adult and you see a sudden change in attitude in one of your coworkers, what are you supposed to do?

I don’t think we’re spending enough time talking about these questions and instead are focusing on the 2nd amendment. That seems to be attacking a byproduct of the disease instead of the disease itself. But, I’m at a loss because I don’t have a clue how to address this problem on a national scale. Do we add educational programs in schools, at work?

If you have some ideas, please let me know but one thing’s for sure we need to stop talking about gun control and start talking about helping people make better (non-lethal) decisions. Because I’m sick and tired of turning on the news and watching the coverage of some person who decided to take their frustrations out on some random people.

Don can be reached at [email protected].

 

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