I have a cup holder that says “Ban idiots, not guns”, which for a long time was my thoughts as well.  I have long supported the second amendment and believe a person should be allowed to own a gun if he or she wants to.  I also believe that it isn’t the gun but the person behind it that needs to be controlled.  And I still believe both of these premises.  However, the number of shootings that keep taking place indicates to me that there absolutely has to be some limit to our freedom of gun ownership since our ability to control the person behind the gun is unmanageable.  State governments that are now changing their laws to allow people to “conceal carry” a weapon without a permit, to me, is going in the wrong direction for public safety. 

What has changed my mind is that I’ve come to believe that there are too many “idiots” out there; so many in fact that there is no way a mental health system, no matter how big or efficient it is, is going to stop the random shootings that keep taking place. 

The recent shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, where three adults and three 9 years old children were killed is a prime example.  The killer was getting mental health counseling, but was still able to purchase several weapons and hide them (except for one) from her parents.  The parents removed the one weapon they found, but were unaware of the others.  The person was then able to blast their way through the locked doors of the school to gain entry and proceed to kill six innocent people.  Three were just children, so it’s hard to imagine how they could have either been a threat or had done anything to have provoked the killer in a manner to warrant being shot to death.  All six were innocent lives snuffed out in an instant by an idiot with a gun.  And I say idiot sarcastically since even most idiots know that it’s wrong to kill innocent people.  The better term for this person, like all persons that just randomly kill others, is “crazy.“  Crazy fits since most of us can’t fathom or even come up with any plausible reason as to why someone in their right mind would do such a thing.

According to ABC News on March 27, 2023, there had been more mass shootings than days in the year to date.   Something has to be done.  Federal and State laws control who can drive vehicles on the highways.  You can’t be too young or too old, you have to be able to see properly, you can’t be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and you have to hold a valid license before you can drive.  The same should apply to owning a gun.  This may get a lot of my friends mad at me, but I now believe we have to have common sense laws put in place across the country, including thorough background checks and even delay times (like a month or two) required before a person can purchase a gun; we also need red flag laws that allow a friend or family member the ability to stop someone they know from having a gun when they sense something bad could happen; and we need a specialized license required of anyone wanting to purchase an assault rifle type of weapon (like requiring a licensed driver, that can normally drive a car or pickup truck, to obtain training and a specialized license to be able to drive a large tractor-trailer). I want to be able to shoot the Charles Manson-like knucklehead that breaks into my home to harm and rob me, but I also don’t want idiots from having access to guns.   So I’m tired of us just trying to ban the idiots from doing senseless shootings.  That does not work.  Idiots can’t control themselves and don’t realize what they are doing when they kill innocent people.  They no longer have the understanding of how precious life is, nor the empathy to see how the actions they carry out effects the lives of so many others.  Family and friends of those killed all keep paying the price; a price that is much too high to bare.