Prayer of the Children
Killed for walking home in the rain. Killed for playing music loud. Killed for going to school. Can America’s children ever be safe from men with guns?
Posted on 12/14/2012, in Justice For Trayvon, Potpourri, Videos and tagged Azusa Pacific University Choir, CT, Florida, George Zimmerman, Newtown, Sybrina Fulton, Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident 
It won’t serve our purposes to prohibit guns, since we know that prohibition doesn’t work. But, we do have decades long experience with strict laws on fire arms and they do work, and have done so for decades. These troubling events began with the relaxation of gun laws.
At the time when the 2nd Amendment was written, America was no where near being “the most powerful nation on earth”. There was a greater danger that a foreign invasion could over take the nation, thus the 2nd Amendment was written, to make it even more difficult for a foreign invader to consolidate control, by making resistance strong.
In today’s world those things are no longer true. It is not an invader from without that we need to fear now. It is “the enemy within”, those who would use gov’t control to take away the rights of citizens to redress their grievances in courts, by rewriting the laws to put absolute power into the hands of a few. Education and vigilance are the “weapons” we need now, the utility of arms has seen it days pass, in terms of what was dangerous to the nation way back then.
We need very strict gun control laws, and very strict rules for gun ownership. People who choose to own guns, need to be accountable for any failure to secure their weapons. Perhaps severe fines for the first or second instance of loss, maybe jail time for any more losses. There needs to be psychological tests and rigorous training requirements for those who choose to have guns, as well as “needs” tests in high population areas.
Strict controls of guns and swift and certain justice for weapons violators, has worked for decades before, there is every indication that they will work again. People who consider the regiments to onerous will probably choose not to own guns.
Just look at the historical record. After the “great depression” many people wandered the nation begging, wandering onto other people’s property in search of a handout or work, few if any were killed as they would be today. Before, during and for a long time after WWII, soldiers and hundreds of thousands of others, felt no danger in hitch hiking around the country, accepting rides with the complete strangers who, themselves felt no risk in picking them up.
We are becoming a very different nation with these lax gun laws, such that it may eventually be impossible to attend crowd attracting events. Are we to become a nation of shut-ins? Afraid of what our neighbors might do? Movie theaters, shopping malls, department store all shuttered? Public squares and commons evacuated? Is this what we’re going to become? If so, then what? Think America, think!!!
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@Lonnie. Thank you for your very thought provoking comment.
Just after 911, I remember hearing some people say that America would next be attacked by suicide bombers. They were wrong. We are attacked by suicide shooters.
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On this same day, in China, a man waited at a school and began to stab the children when they arrived. This was the 4th knife attack at a China school since 2010. Chinese gun laws prohibit gun ownership by a private citizen. Did that prevent someone from attacking the innocent children? No. Is the answer to ban all knives in China? There is something more to these attacks and that is where we need to find the answer.
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Towerflower, mankind has been unable to find an answer for those who kill humans because it resides in the minds and hearts. Not to disagree with you, but one person with one knife attacks one victim at a time and has to get close enough physically to do so. One person with an assault rifle can kill many from far range. There’s little chance of running to get away. When people are in a place of worship, school room, theater, they are like sitting ducks.
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towerflower, if I am correct all of the stabbing victims survived unlike the 20 children who were gunned down Friday.
Why is it so difficult to understand that guns allow for maximum destruction and death while allowing the perpretrator to injure or kill from a distance and avoid injury from his victims?
The something more is that America has defunded its mental health institutions so we have many mentally ill Americans roming the streets instead of being kept away from society.
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Yes, the 24 victims (23 children and 1 adult) all survived. But, since 2010 there have been 7 attacks on schools leaving 21 dead and 90 injured. Not a gun was used, since they are banned, but instead cleavers, hammers, and knives. Some experts have attributed the incidents to rapid social change, mass migrations, increasing disparities in wealth and weakening of traditions and others attribute it to the government’s failure to diagnose and treat mental illness.
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Xena…Beautiful video.I just saw a press conference on TV from the medical examiner.He informed everyone that all these POOR KIDS were KILLED from the ASSAULT WEAPON & were hit several times.He could barely get thru press conference,because its so horrific.It seems like all these KILLERS have some kind of mental problems,loners,on meds,etc.I am just so sick & tired of our CHILDREN being MURDERED.This can NOT be good for GZ’s case at all,because people everywhere are fed up with CHILD MURDERS!!
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Hi Marilyn! Adam was on a deliberate mission. He left none wounded — he intended to kill. This is a wake-up call for sure.
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I still feel there is more than the firearm being used. Are we as a society becoming more and more desensitized? Desensitized to the feelings of others and to life itself? Attacks on schools involving indiscriminate killings and firearms started to really happen in the 1980s. What has changed in society? Is it the movies? We went from Pyscho which induced terror while leaving much to the imagination to movies today that leave nothing to the imagination and are filled with blood and gore. We went from playing pong and donkey kong on video games to Assassins Creed and Black Ops. Now when you go down the video game aisle you find the majority of the games are killing games. Is it because of the lack of mental medical care?
Yes at one time a person could hitchhike across the country and not a sinister thought ever entered one’s mind. We had guns then. Yes, at one time you could go to a stranger’s home and ask for a handout and not a sinister thought crossed one’s mind. And we had guns then too. Semi automatic pistols, rifles, and shotguns have been around for over 100 yrs yet these senseless acts on schools by these types of firearms only 30 yrs. So what has changed?
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Not meaning to sound sexist in the least, but merely to attempt to answer the question of what has significantly changed in the last 30 or so years, that could be responsible for today’s lack of sensitivity etc., Okay? So don’t take this as a sexist narrative, because it isn’t.
But, the one big difference I see is that mothers have left the home. Mothers are now juggling careers and have to split their time between child care and work, often leaving children for others to raise (child care).
Okay, not that this should not have happened, but that it did happen, and it happened in a very disorderly way. It started with people trying to get ahead faster, by having both parents work, giving the first families to do so, more disposable income, faster mortgage payment tracks and bigger investment portfolios. Soon everyone was doing it. As it led to increased affluence, which in turn led to greater demand for goods and services, prices began to rise.
Eventually prices rose to a point where, what was once a luxury of having a two bread winner family, suddenly became a necessity. Soon everyone planning a family had to accept that both parents would need jobs. The order of the household changed from what had been a stable paradigm to something a bit more chaotic and less well defined.
So, I think we need to look at that, to see if that has had the impact we’re looking at, and what if anything might need to be done to ameliorate any harm done, if we can find any.
One thing I can point to as a possible result of this new family pressure, is that, by looking at China, where one child families have been tried and found to be terrible at raising good citizens, they have not switched to approving/advising parents to have more than one child.
Could the modern American family paradigm be producing more “only child” families? Could that somehow be the cause of what we’re seeing?
Oh, before I forget, we also have “Mr. Mom”, which is the role reversal. But the two parent family isn’t any longer the norm? Have only child families increased?
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“One thing I can point to as a possible result of this new family pressure, is that, by looking at China, where one child families have been tried and found to be terrible at raising good citizens, they have not switched to approving/advising parents to have more than one child.”
CORRECTION: the above should read
“…they have NOW switched to approving/advising parents to have more than one child”
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