Here's an original 1000 word plus essay I wrote for you to read -- If no one comments, I will assume it's because no one cares and people think that this whole gun/mental health issue is a government conspiracy theory...
I went to a local sport and hunting store, went to the guns section and was shocked to see the cases practically empty. The phones were ringing off the hook and it was pure pandemonium. I saw first hand how out of control this gun control issue has gotten - people are absolutely terrified that their second amendment rights are going to go ‘poof.’ And I can’t help but thinking that the President and Vice President doing the wrong things, threatening to limit our second amendment, rather than taking appropriate action. This issue, like all controversial issues do, made it to Hollywood. Remember those trailers for Gangster Squad? Well, because of the Aurora, Colorado shooting, producers decided to delete a scene, apparently one that was creepily reminiscent of what happened, and reshot a new scene, not to mention they postponed the release of the film. My issue with this is that film is art. And this is censoring, and I don’t believe it’s right to censor artistic expression.
But now let’s go back to my argument; what would President Obama and Vice President smiley-face love more than taking away assault weapons? Taking away guns from ordinary people that is. Why so much focus on the guns issue when the core issue is mysteriously fading from the media spotlight? I think the media and government have swept the central issue under the rug; the mental health crisis in the United States. Gun control is now being called gun safety, as Michelle Malkin says on Fox and Friends, because gun safety denotes a less radical, less intrusive way of limiting a constitutional freedom.
It’s not the guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people. Can there be another anecdote that brings out the absolute worst in people? I think not. Sandy Hook was an incredible tragedy, but you can’t let the spin from media on the web, television, newspapers, college professors or the government mask the truth. Most people that own handguns are ordinary, law abiding citizens, who use guns as protection, not to destroy human life. I do recognize the difference between assault weapons and personal handguns. I am not certain that the best thing to do to prohibit the use of assault weapons by civilians. But I know one thing, if our second amendment rights are fringed upon, the south may just succeed after all. Seriously. I go to Georgia Tech and cannot tell you how frustrating it is to receive a clery act for armed robbery in the my morning email. There aren’t nearly enough Georgia Tech police and concealed carry, in my opinion, on college campuses needs to happen.
But, on a more important note, I have a concern with Vice President Joe Biden, with his Cheshire cat (no offense Chesh) smile, with claims to do “something” about gun control…I mean safety. Biden wants President Obama to perform an executive action to do “something.” But Biden’s objective is not only to do something about assault weapons; I fear something drastic, with the second amendment.
It’s not the ordinary people with handguns that kill the majority of people dying from gun related crimes. It’s the criminals that are responsible for the majority of gun related deaths and criminals don’t care about any type of executive action taken – criminals will buy and sell and carry weapons no matter what; that is one reason why they are criminals - the law has no effect on their behavior. I can’t help putting some of the blame on society for the perpetrator’s of the crimes at the Aurora movie theatre, Columbine, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech. In each instance, the gun-wielding male was mentally ill. How can society not notice these individuals, these individuals who are withdrawn from society, who don’t interact with their fellow man, who seem awkward, who claim that they will hurt people and animals or do something through social media outlets? You can’t not notice, you cannot be so blind, you can only ignore.
Since I’m blaming society, I might as well just go full force and blame the families of these individuals at fault as well. They should be held accountable. They should have said something, done something. If your child kills animals out in the backyard for fun, you know you have a problem. If your child is disruptive at home and school, you know you have a problem. If your child is defiant, impulsive and has committed criminal acts, you definitely know you have a problem. I can’t see nor believe that parents, family members, teachers and other community members didn’t notice or couldn’t tell that something was wrong (that’s just a bunch of b.s. and denial). This could be the most infuriating part of these occurrences – the complete blindness and refusal to take action on part of the closest to the gun-wielding psychopath.
It’s happened, but what can we really do now to prevent it from happening again? VP Biden blames video games. It’s not the video games – I play all kinds of video games, from Viva Piñata to Gears of War – and I’m just fine (but I didn’t sit in front of my Nintendo 64 when I was eight years old for eight to ten hours a day). I do know that studies have shown video game violence transfers to the real world. But then you could say video games are prepping the young to become soldiers. I guess, video games are to the Third Reich as the associated violence with video games is to the Nazi Youth. So ban mature rated video games to adults eighteen or older. But will that work? I seriously doubt it. Mature rated video games will be like alcohol and underage kids – they will figure out a way to get them anyway. This plausible solution isn’t the right or only solution to the problem, because video games aren’t the true cause.
It’s a mental health crisis. I may be going out on a limb here, but let’s take solutions to the extreme. Psychopaths (also known as sociopaths unless you’re going to scrutinize the differences down to tiny attributes) have noticeable brain abnormalities; ventricles in the brains of psychopaths are enlarged. Maybe from birth, we can give every newborn a CT scan to look for brain abnormalities. It could be possible that the medical community could identify psychopaths even before they take their first steps. But what would we do with these ‘invalids’ (yes I’m borrowing this word from Gattaca, because it helps make my point). We would have to exterminate them, how about that for anti-human rights, or lock them up in children’s prisons (but little kids grow up, right?) We could start up gladiator teams, with little kids on each, and use them for really disturbing entertainment. Or we could use them for cosmetic testing (free the animals!).
What do you do with psychopaths? Currently, we just ‘lock em up’. Medications don’t help unless they are psychotic. Lobotomies could work, right? Yeah, I vote for lobotomies. There’s nothing more gratifying than turning a cold-blooded killer into a complete vegetable. Setting aside the satire, really what can we do?
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