School Shootings and Christmas Muzak

Fairly annoyed with lots of recent happenings.

Firstly, I have been listening to irritating Xmas music for...four solid weeks now...it does not put one in the Christmas spirit, or...whatever its supposed to do....it just grates one's nerves and causes visions of taking an axe to evil Musak box while I am subjected to the idiotic music for 40 hours a week--more if I am at any other retailer.  I know its not making the shoppers any less crabby...in fact, I think it only reminds them that they have little money and little time to spend.

School shootings and the way simplistic folk like to place simplistic solutions on a very serious issue.  Somehow, (according to most of my friends, family and acquaintances via Facebook)  its because of the following:

1.  God, the Existence or Lack of, Satan, the Existence or Lack of,  and the absence of religion and prayer within the school system. 

I find this one troubling.  Of course religion and prayer in school is absent.  We, in this country that was founded on religious freedom, have made a choice to separate church and state.  Pray to a Christian God, then you must then pray to a God/Goddess/Deity from EVERY faith so as not to show favoritism.  Also, I fail to see exactly how prayer in school would have stopped an armed, mentally ill person from being deranged.

There have always been good and bad things in the world.  Every religion has yet been powerless to prevent the bad.

2.  Gun Control (because, as we all know, the mentally deranged often obey ALL the laws)

Also troubling since I have a gun and so have most of my family, friends and acquaintances for all of my life.  All of us have been trained, since childhood, to treat ALL guns as if they are loaded and to NOT point them at anything/one that you do not intend to kill...meaning we were taught properly to respect things that cannot be taken back. Once that bullet leaves the chamber, someone or something is going to be hurt or die. 

There have been no gun accidents in my family.  It is a hugely large family who all own guns, and several have Concealed Carry Licenses.

There was one suicide.  A properly trained Vietnam Vet who INTENDED to end HIS OWN life. Not someone else's.  And yes, he was mentally ill.  After all that, it would be more surprising that he had come home unscathed.

The U.S. Constitution gives us the right to have and bear arms.  If the government does somehow manage to outlaw them, most of us will still have and bear arms, just illegally.  This country is nothing if not a country filled with rebels.  Just because the government says something is so does not make us all follow along like happy, trusting sheep.

The guns in the shooting were LEGALLY OBTAINED by a teacher.  Shooters can always find guns, legally or illegally; according to the pattern, it just doesn't matter. Timothy McVeigh used explosives, the 911 conspirators used airplanes....the HOW doesn't matter so much as the WHY.

THE WHY

It is NOT done purely for notoriety, which is what apparently Morgan Freeman has suggested.  I don't remember ANY of the names for ANY of the school shootings since Columbine.  Notoriety, is probably involved in some, weird twisted manner, just how, I cannot say.

I would say the availability of mental health services, the lack of mental health institutions, the lack of affordable treatment, and the lack of health insurance would be more to blame than guns.  Always, in these tragedies, some form of mental health help would most likely have been beneficial and perhaps prevented them from even happening, or at least given the parents of these individuals some options.  I read a really really interesting article about it today.

I am going to post it.

Here It Is

The fact that this is a cycle that keeps occurring makes me wonder just what can be done to stop it.  What are each of us NOT noticing about our own daily lives.  Small things somehow always become big things when ignored.  I know in my own marriage its always the small things that come back to bite us in the ass when we least expect it because, at the time, they weren't large enough issues to have been addressed properly.

Okay, enough of my tirade. I've probably bored everyone stiff...but, if I don't get to vent, I would surely spontaneously combust.