We are NOT safer with guns

    After yet another shooting at a school in America, we are faced with the pointless exercise of asking why things like this happen. I am tired of all of the exxcuses. These tragedies happen because America is infested with guns. The fact that tens of thousands of Americans die every year from gun-related incidents seems to be one that we have chosen to ignore. I want to know why we are so willing to accept this slaughter without action.

    There are people who argue that having a gun makes them safer. I have my doubts that this is true, because if it were there would be clearly demonstrable evidence that this is the case. Instead, all of the statistical evidence points to people being much more likely to be killed or injured in a home where a gun is present. That is not to say that every home with a gun will experience a tragedy, because to say that would be disingenuous, yet the people who seem to worship guns are the ones that use the same flawed logic to justify NOT controlling the proliferation of guns in this country by claiming that having those guns makes them safer!

    There are too many people who calim to believe that our country was based on the concept of being armed at all times. I have yet to find any real documentation that such an environment ever existed except in western movies where guns are always used to settle problems. This portion of the population always seems to think that we need to solve our problems with gun as often as possible. They often tie this belief to a peculiar brand of Christianity and claim that by being armed to the teeth and threatening the lives of others that they are somehow the true protectors of America. This is a very offensive position that I simply cannot agree with.

    I find it not surpsing at all that this type of belief system has been promulgated through the media. How many movies are there are "renegade" good cops or civilians that solve every obstacle through the use of guns? How strange is it that we have a cable channel dedicated to the military thata recently changed its name to the American Heroes Channel, and that now adds bulk religious prrograms to their schedule?

    The connection between religious fiundamentalism and guns is no different here than it is in the Middle East, and the objectives of both groups are the same which is the concentration of political power for themselves by combining religion and weapons both to protect themselves and to encourage them to sprerad their beliefs. Speaking as an Atheist, I find nothing religious at all in these lunatics, only the religions that they claim to be protecting in the name of their own political power structures.

    With the availability of guns comes the resulting slaughter of Americans by Americans every year. The disturbing trend of a troubled youth taking guns from their homes and then dealing death at their schools in order to redress real or percieved slights should alarm us all. Instead of thinking about ways to relate to one another in more positive and encouraging ways, we get the proposed solution that we need even MORE weapons available at schools in order to "protect ourselves" from the same lunatics that society seems to produce with such proficiency.

    After every tragedy, when the subject of guns is brought up for debate the response is alweays the same. "To debate the issue now shows lack of respect to the grieving families of the victims". This is bullshit because if we addressed the problem then there would not be nearly as many families grieving in the first place! So we  roll along from one school shooting to another and nothing is ever done. I can still recall the heartbreak when I heard about Newtown.

I was at a celebratory lunch with some current and former coworkers. The TV at the restaraunt was providing details of the tragedy as it unfolded but the conversation from the others at the table instantly turned into an "Obama will be coming for our guns now" type of event. I paid my check and left them at the table rather than listen to more of their crap. Their entire personalities were  changing before mny very eyes. There was no sense of outrage over what had happened, and their conversation became one in which the person  who shouted the conservative talking points the loudest was considered the smartest person at the table.

    The hardest people to reason with are those who consider themselves to be "Right with God". This position gives them the emotional  security that they need to justify doing nothing in the face of tragedies such as Newtown or Maryville.

    This brings me back to the original point. When we will as a nation, do something to stop the slaughter?