Little Ones

Devastating

I read a tweet after the Clackamas mall shooting that said they were afraid this 'wouldn't be the last shooting of 2012'. Here we are, just days after that shooting and I wake up to find that 26 were killed in an elementary school. 18 CHILDREN and 8 adults. Let that just sink in for a moment...

My heart is unbelievably sad right now. I pray that we aren't so calloused to such events that we hear the news and go on throughout our day. If you aren't moved to tears and if your heart isn't breaking... you should probably take a good look inside as to why that is. I cannot imagine what these little ones had to witness... their friends and teachers shot in front of them? Little ones in art classes hiding in school closets...

I wrote a post a few months ago about the shooting in Colorado. How quickly did we forget about them? How quickly will we forget about this shooting? What will it take for our country to deal with our insanely loose gun control laws? How many children will it take to be gunned down for us to wake up to our countries sick views on violence? I'm tired of people saying that it's not guns that are the issue but the people behind them. Yes, that is partially true but if those people didn't have access to guns, we'd have 20 little children alive and looking forward to Santa. There were 15 mass shootings this year alone. I was just watching a gun control debate and I'm so sick of hearing that we need more guns so these things don't happen. What a load of crap. Have we completely gone off the deep end? FIVE year olds were murdered! I'm so angry right now I could scream.

Japan has one of the strictest laws regarding guns. The only guns allowed are shotguns and rifles. It is no easy task to obtain one. Japan has the second lowest murder rate in the world. I've never felt as safe as I did when I was in Japan. In 2008 the USA had over 12,000 firearm homicides. Japan had 11 for the ENTIRE year. Less than the Colorado shooting. By the way, 11 gun related homicides was considered shocking to Japan. Their minds must explode when they hear about us.

We pride ourselves in our 'right to bear arms'. I believe we've twisted this original statement that it's virtually unrecognizable to what the original intent was. Our country is obsessed with violence. Video games actually reward you for how many head shots you make. Is this seriously where we are at in our country? Why do you need access to assault weapons? Why do we need hand guns? What is the point of them except to kill as many people as possible? And as my brother said, if your argument is about hunting, you should probably stop because you're terrible at it if you need a gun that pumps out 100 rounds. Until we wake up and make serious changes, another shooting is on its way. Praying for you Sandy Hook.