Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.~George Orwell

As I sit here with my daughter talking about her  Novi Stars dolls that she got for Christmas I get struck with a great sadness after some of the things I read this morning on Facebook.

I hesitate to call the things I see anything like a ‘gun control debate’ because I believe most people are reacting from emotion, not reason–just as I am.

I can’t help thinking of all of those kindergarten babies that are dead and then to the high school kids, babies always to their parents. And the middle school children, right in the middle of the hardest school years and never given a chance to see how good life can be. And it just hurts and my Bean hugs me and I feel my chest ache for those parents who won’t ever feel that again.

I have to stop for a minute, I’m crying about this again.

I’m not sure we can ever debate this with logic. I’ve tried thinking about it in less emotional times. 

I was raised with guns. I was taught respect for them. I have been to shooting ranges and I may again.

What I don’t understand are these things:

 

Why do you need something that sprays bullets really fast? You don’t hunt with that do you? Why would that kind of gun help if someone tries to break into your home–isn’t there a concern about hurting family members as well as the criminals?

Do you really think someone is going to kick down your door and take the guns you own?

If you are a law abiding citizen, why do you object to a rigorous yet fair background check (provided it turns out that way–I guess that might be a problem)?

Why do you need high capacity magazines if you are not on a swat team? Shouldn’t we leave those for law enforcement?

Why wouldn’t the English model work here in the U.S.?

Do you really think armed teachers are the answer? In a number of these shootings they had armed guards and the kids were still shot. Don’t you think the teachers will mainly be protecting the students and the gunman will still shoot them or take their guns and end up with just one more gun?

Why is it a bad thing to regulate gun show sales carefully?

We have driver’s licenses and hunting licenses and fishing licenses–why are gun licenses different?

I understand that bad guys will still get guns. But so will good guys. Why will making high capacity magazines, especially –harder to get why do you object to that?

Is it just that you don’t want the government in your business? I understand that to a degree…I’d like them to stop debating the uterus and uses thereof, since it really isn’t their business.  But is gun control the same thing?

These same people that propose putting a policeman in every school are the very same people who would vote down the tax increase needed to pay for them.  How does that work as a solution then? Would you support that with your taxes? I would I think.

And while we are at it–don’t you think that having more mental health support would have prevented this?  

I don’t ask these questions on Facebook because FB is full of drama and quick snotty cartoons about the matter. I’d welcome a rational discussion about this but haven’t found that anyplace online, of course.  I’ve actually been staying off  except for auto posting (like foursquare or Spotify or things like that) or posting without reading my friends list because this isn’t a discussion for crappy cartoons or snotty one offs. Children are being murdered and that isn’t something you address in those ways in my opinion–it degrades their memory.

I feel strongly we should all be horrified at what happened in Newtown, Aurora, Seattle, Oakland, Tuscon and on and on and work together to compromise and do all we can on BOTH sides of this issue to stop these things however we can. The only way this is going to be solved is by meeting in the middle with rational discussion and those children’s deaths foremost in our minds and hearts.  We can agree on that right?