After the tragic shooting that took place this last friday, you will hear from many people in the political arena how this should make you hold your children tighter, which is true. Whenever something as senseless and shocking as a shooting at a school happens, it should make you value what you have more, but there is also something you should hold on to very tightly. And that is your guns. I would say your rights, but those aren't exactly tangible. Well I guess you could hold on to your constitution. But the point is, the Gun's Rights debate is far from over.
One might think that just like all the other times this topic has been front and center in Washington (with maybe the exception of the assault weapons ban in 94') Republicans will take the day, and we will see no significant change in our ability to own guns. Well, I hate to break this to you, but that might not be the case this time. Previous to the shooting that took place this last friday, people generally wanted to keep gun laws the way they are right now. But a gallop poll came out that says that 54% of Americans support stricter gun control laws.
What don't people get? I'm not going to use the classic phrase "Guns don't kill people, people kill people", because the American public has grown old of the saying, and quite frankly so have I. But still, all these shootings that are taking place are not due to lax gun laws, they are due to a problem in morality. If someone has evil in their heart, they want to do something heinous, and they aren't exactly "afraid" to take their own life just like the shooter this friday, they're going to do something evil. They will find a way to kill. They'll use bombs, or knives, or a car, or fire, or some other means of killing.
So what can we do? Lots of people will tell you that we should ban assault weapons, but in 1194 before the assault weapons ban, you were eleven more times likely to beaten to death than killed with an assault weapon, and also look at the charts below, I got them from Mother Jones, a great site.(http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map)
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I think it's clear that an assault weapons ban would not work (Can Someone please tell Senator Feinstein this), but if you really want to fix the problem, teach kids about religion and morality in school. I'm not saying that we should shove christianity down the throats of all kids in the public school system, by making them say a prayer every day. But how about a class on the major religions of the world? Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Teach kids that you don't necessarily need to follow any of these religions, but talk about how each of these religions promote peace, and living with your neighbor. Teach the kids prayers from each of the religions, so that if they get interested in one of them, they know how to pursue their interest, or at least where to begin. And if someone has a problem with their kid(s) being taught about how faith and religion are good, and the lessons we can learn from them, then they can have their kid opt out of the class, similar to sex ed. If the next generation is engineered thinking and believing in the ideals I touched upon above, then I promise you there will be less mass shootings.
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