Gun Law Naivety

I understand the desire to avoid more tragedies. However by making us more vulnerable is only counter productive. I read in the news about the woman that shot the home invader in Georgia. It really does make the point for not banning assault rifles if people would just stop being stubborn and listen.

The woman was using a six shot revolver, striking the intruder five times, but what if she had missed? What if the intruder had an assault rifle to return fire with? The result would have been much different.

We live in a state of naivety. Do we really think that stricter gun laws on assault rifles will simply stop the violence? I hate be so blunt but how stupid are these people?

Assault rifles will be present in our country the same as they are around world with or without more gun laws, with or without the fact that it is legal or illegal for us to own them. The only thing that will come from making assault rifles illegal will be that people will only be able to buy them illegally, and yes they will buy them. So now it will be primarily in the hands of people participating in illegal activity. Wow great idea America now only the criminals will have them. While we sit back with our handguns the criminals are coming with their assault rifles.

Do we really believe that making them illegal will stop criminals from smuggling them into our country? We speak of protection yet we have thousands of unemployed veterans that actually know how to use them. The white house wants to help them find work yet they are overlooking the obvious. Allow schools, businesses, or whoever has the desire for an assault rifle for protection to hire them. Start a program through the government that will fund it. We can give money to banks but we can’t make a bill for the people that keep our country free.

I know a lot of people will still brush this opinion to the side. Hopefully someone with a different opinion might listen. Making these guns illegal is not the answer. Society is the problem not the guns. The guns aren’t killing people. People are killing people.

Politically Incorrect

The war in Syria has been an ongoing issue for nearly two years now. While I admire the international community for their vocal support. The people speaking of putting foreign troops on the ground should really rethink their opinions.

Who are we replacing Assad and the regimes forces with? Is it with democracy and freedom? Or is it more oppression under different leadership? There have been several reports of extremists groups linked to terrorism joining the rebellion. How can we hunt these men down around the world but let them run amuck in Syria?

What do we have to gain? What does the world have to gain? Allowing extremists to join the conflict is only going to hurt the rest of the world. We are basically watching another Afghanistan forming before our very eyes and we are cheering them on.

We cannot really believe that this is really just about freeing the people from a ruthless dictator. We have already neglected the situation in Mali and this is only going to add fuel to the fire. More extremists will start uprising under false pretenses, appearing to free a people but secretly creating another safe haven for terrorists.

Have we all forgotten the attack on the American embassy in Libya, can we really say that terrorists aren’t setting up shop in Libya? Just another unstable region for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to blend into and plot more atrocities against the international community; for us to do nothing is hypocrisy at its best.

We cannot claim to have a war on terror when we are not fighting it head on. Allowing it in some regions but not in others. In one country we intervene but in another we do nothing. Who are we to determine who is worth saving and who is not?

We watch all of the terror in Africa and speak of how terrible it is; yet we allow it to continue. We cannot say that we went to war to save people because if that were true we would have done much more. We would not sit back and allow hundred of thousands of people to be viciously murdered. We speak of how awful the holocaust was while we watch it continue on television. 

The message we are sending is that genocide is ok as long as it's not in our own backyard or one of our ally’s backyards. We speak of what is wrong but not of how to fix it. Of course not because that wouldn’t be politically correct. Well I’m sorry but sometimes being politically correct is incorrect.  

The New Year

With all of the things going on in the world it seems that none of these problems are capable of transcending this topic of conversation. What is your new years resolution? What is my new years resolution? The same as it always is, to not have a new years resolution. I live each day the same as the before it, to try to find a way to make a better life for myself.

It’s not about what you’re going to do this year, this month, this week, or even this day. It’s about what you’re going to do with your life. Definitely a task that is much easier to say than it is to do. I think the hardest thing in life is, knowing what you want to do and taking the steps to get there, but in the end it isn’t enough. That is why the only resolution that is really worth having in your life is to never give up.

I recently spent six months writing my first book. For the last six weeks I have been going through the process of trying to find a literary agent and a publisher to give me a chance. I know it often takes writers over a year to get someone to show interest in representing and publishing their book. I now know it is much harder to sell your book than it is write it.

I know that I might not succeed and I stress over it every day. I just try to draw peace from knowing that at least I’m trying. At least I am not just sitting idly and waiting for something great to come along. I understand that not everyone is going to have faith in me and not everyone is going to support me. Luckily I have never been the type to care too much about what other people think.

If you live your life trying to please everyone else you’re going to find yourself to be the only one that’s miserable. What is the point? Why would you go out of your way to make other people happy but not yourself? It must be the masochist inside that causes people to do that. I guess that sometimes the only thing that gives you joy, is knowing that at least you’re choosing to suffer.

So I encourage you to think outside the box. Don’t fret over what to do with your new year and try to focus on how you can change your life. It’s not all about failing or succeeding; it’s about trying, just keep trying.