Stop! Just F***ing Stop!

 Another shooting at a church today. 3 people, so far, have died including the shooter. One is still in critical condition. Oh, dear God...

Let me first say that I do not care what the shooter's motives were. They do not and cannot change the outcome. I do not blame the left or the right, I do not blame the Internet and I do not blame his childhood, no matter what the might have been like. At the end of the day, a 40 year old man decided that he, and he alone, had the right and the capability to shoot church goers at church on a Sunday morning.

So the 4th Amendment give every citizen the right to keep and bear arms as a vehicle to keep the government in check. Let me further state that I am from Texas. I own guns. I grew up with guns. I have used them for sport and keep them in my home for protection for people that would use their guns outside of Constitutional intent. I also believe that "outside of Constitutional intent" is the way guns are being used in our society all the time - as evidenced by the incredible number of blind, stupid murders occurring everyday across our country. Your guns are intended to discourage government overreach, not to punish or assassinate people you don't agree with about something, anything. How many children have to be shot before we realize that our rights are abridging theirs? Don't children and their parents have the right to be safe in their schools, their homes and their persons? Well, dammit, don't they? Where does their right end and your right to keep and bear arms begin? Where is the line? How do we balance their right to feel safe (which to me is fundamental to the 'pursuit of happiness') with our right to keep and bear arms?

I do not know the answer to that question. But I have some thoughts - As a gun owner, I have no problem proving to my community that I am a safe and responsible owner. I'm not talking registration of guns, I'm thinking more along the lines of gun user testing, sorta like a driver's license for being able to possess a firearm. You would be able to get one, even if you don't own a weapon, it would just be a basic security to show that you understand that guns have EXTREMELY limited, legitimate uses. Not because the government says so, because of what firearms are. 

Firearms have one basic function: to kill. That's what they were invented for, throughout history that's what they have been used for, and, literally cannot be defined as having any other purpose. Sure, you can shoot targets and clay pigeons, but that's a sporting corollary to their real function, designed to sharpen your ability to carry out that main function. 

Think of it this way: How comfortable would you be knowing your neighbor had a nuclear weapon in his home? He's a great guy! Attends all the PTA meetings, takes his kids to church every Sunday, and shows up for the HOA meeting to complain about the trash piling up at the edges of the community garden. But a nuclear weapon? How confident are you that you can trust that he won't get mad enough at someone, anyone, to set it off? What if he's a physicist and has the right to have a small nuclear weapon in his possession. Does that make you feel safer? Wouldn't you feel better knowing, by some tangible evidence, that he would not even consider this as a possibility?

So guns are the nuclear weapons of modern American. They kill or injure thousands of Americans every year. And Americans are doing the shooting. How do we stop that? I don't know. I don't have answers that will make everybody happy. But we damn sure need to start talking options. 

This must stop. Just fucking stop.