Remember your last elementary school? Whimsical recollections of finger-paint, buddy learning and edible glue are typical. Not so for the kids of Newtown Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary. Their last memories of the now closed Sandy Hook Elementary school facility are of smoky hallways, booming gunshots, slain acquaintances and mind numbing terror. The contradiction between what happened at Sandy Hook and what elementary should be is extreme enough to call for reform but are we doing the right thing?
Are we really protecting the students of tomorrow or are we setting the stage for something worse than the horror of what happened at Sandy Hook?
Everyone’s heard about it by now, but for the sake of keeping the stats clear allow me to reiterate: On Friday December 14, 2012, 20 year old Adam Lanza went postal. For reasons unknown, the “socially awkward” Lanza opened fire upon the young students and faculty of Sandy Hook Elementary. He’d already left his mother dead at home. After his own suicide, the final damage tally is 28 people dead and one nation in emotional distress.
Needless to say, such a mindless act of violence is a horrifying outrage to America. Our nation is collectively raised into a stagnated activist’s turmoil. Lawmakers, parents, and schools alike are all pushing for measures to be taken to prevent situations like what has occurred in Sandy Hook. The situation seems simple enough- if Adam Lanza hadn't possessed access to firearms, he wouldn't have committed the crime that claimed so many lives. The proposed solution? Gun control. In a recent release from AP news, White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was "actively supportive" of a plan by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to introduce legislation to reinstate an assault weapons ban. In the same report, the National Rifle Association was quoted saying that it “is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure that this never happens again.”
Problem? This is like passing a seatbelt law to make sure that no one is ever killed in a car wreck again. In case anyone has forgotten, there are other ways to kill beyond the old assault weapon standby. To name a few; guns of smaller caliber, modified handguns, homemade explosives, fire, knives….etcetera. Just ask the Republic of China where private ownership of firearms and ammunition has been severely restricted. Killers can be endlessly creative. So creative that if the government really wanted to “make sure this never happens again,” it would have to take measures greater than simple assault weapon ban. That’s actually where the real tragedy begins- when the government enlarges itself to consume our most basic rights because of a few bad apples. Has everyone forgotten the ultimate enemy to free civilization?
The point is that you can disarm a brilliant psychopath and he may still manage to take out a dozen or so innocent people through one mad killing spree. But if you disarm an entire nation and hand over all firearms to the government, you’re pretty much entrusting those citizens to whomever happens to be elected. The II Amendment clearly calls for the right of citizens to bear arms because our Founding Fathers understood that the greatest threat to American freedom and safety are not the Adam Lanza’s of the world but the Hitler and Stalin types that will gain control over a weak society and commit genocide. As of now, no one has directly proposed disarming the citizens entirely, and hopefully it will not come to that, but there have been hints of this in the past. Do not be fooled. II Timothy tells us that in the last days men shall be lovers of their own selves…boasters, proud, disobedient to parents…without natural affection…ect. Just as any mass murder may epitomize this description the same is true of any government tyrant.
The solution is never to hand over your rights to the government. The United States of America was founded on God and Freedom. How can we expect to regain the prosperity and peace of our nation by turning away from both? Yes, the children of Sandy Hook Elementary needed greater protection but not the type that the government would impose upon them. Remember to fight for your rights. There is no safety in disarmed hands.
Sources:
The Bible
AP Network News
www.cuttingedge.org
www.jud.ct.gov/ji/cri
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