I don’t read the news, or watch the news, on a regular
basis. I’m sort of surrounded by people
who do that for me and talk about things they find either amusing or appalling in
a way that suggests they think everyone knows about them- and I have learned
how to look as if it isn’t all a big surprise to me. If you couldn’t tell, I’m actually pretty
surprised that I’m writing about another current event (or two).
That said, sometimes even I go prowling the news sites,
generally because I have heard a tidbit somewhere and I’ve decided that it
deserves a fact checking beyond its status as a Facebook meme. I did so today, initially looking for
information about the now infamous letter sent to the family of an autistic
child. I was reading an article that was
more philosophical than informative (I did think that prosecuting it as harassment
was a better option than redefining hate crimes, personally) but did at least
confirm that it was something that had actually happened, and recently rather
than so many things that get posted as if they were yesterday when really they
were close to or more than a decade ago.
I meant to stop there, but one of the article links on the
sidebar had that train wreck effect that had me clicking my sanity away. “Three US teens kill Australian baseball
player because they were bored.” A 15
year old, a 16 year old, and a 17 year old were driving around with a gun and
picked this guy at random to shoot in the back because they figured it was
fun. I find myself with a few things I
need to rant about, in the hopes that it will make me feel better…
Teenage sociopaths are no new thing. It’s a weird time between the sanctioned
selfishness of childhood and the drives of adulthood and a lot of people that
have hope of redemption get a little bit caught between for a while. That doesn’t mean that this isn’t a problem
though and that you should be ready to wave your hands and chant, “Boys will be
boys.” I don’t have a surefire solution-
I imagine there’s going to have to be a lot of trial and error and *some*
acceptance that no system is perfect (but systems should *try* to be perfect
anyway). I’m not a huge proponent of censorship,
and even though GTA really annoys me, I’m pretty sure that we have successfully
proven that after something is introduced that the best way to make sure that
it’s everywhere, is to ban it. We have a
culture that glorifies violence, and for hundreds of years have had the
technology to make taking lives a simple thing.
My best idea for countering this is to suggest that we need to pay more
attention to each other. We should be
making sure that our loved ones have reason to feel that they are loved. We should be watching to see if those around
us have an understanding of empathy- also, consequences. There is no reset button on life, and that
doesn’t seem to be nearly as obvious as we’d like to think it is.
Then there is the ever popular gun control debate… I know
that there are people on my friends’ list that are on opposite sides of this
issue. Like usual, the stance I take is
one that probably annoys both sides for being a bit too close to the
middle. I actually have a premade gun
control rant that one day I should post the entirety of- but for now I’ll just
put the basics. I’m not one who’s flying
the ‘ban all guns’ banner. On the other
hand, I do support gun control *as I define it*. I put that last bit in bold because I know
that different people define it differently.
Some people think gun control just means banning. I mean it to include licensing laws, training
requirements, and the adding of serial numbers to weapons. I also don’t think it’s a huge injustice to
deny someone who is clearly, violently unhinged, a firearm- just saying. Here’s where I get back on topic though: I
believe that being a gun owner means that you’ve taken on a
responsibility. I think that if your
teenager manages to get ahold of your firearm, that you have not taken proper
security measures and that you have failed in that responsibility. While your sociopath is getting his compulsory
time out of society, you should be assigned a large fine.
I want to end by stating that in this case, more people
having guns would not have made any difference (unless the distressed lady
witness who phoned it in had amazing instincts and was also a crack shot).
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