Children and Guns

I was saddened when I read of a five year old boy who shot his two year old sister. He will carry that pain with him for the rest of his life. The real shock came when I read that he shot her with his own gun, a 22 made for a five year old and painted blue. They make a pink one for girls. What is wrong here?

Right away the pro gun people were posting that it was just a tragic accident that could happen to anyone. In a sense it was a tragic accident from the point of view of the five year old who did not mean to kill his little sister. Many times my brother and I played cowboys with our cap pistols aiming and shooting at each other. They were toys and did not damage. A five year old has no comprehension of lethal weapons; he was playing with a new toy.

The anti gun group began a rant about firearms companies that produce lethal weapons made for such young children. There is also some truth to their concerns but that is not the real problem. Children shoot other children with guns left available by parents. In this case a gun made available as a gift by a parent.

My problem is with the parents who are guilty of negligent homicide by providing a loaded weapon to a child with out supervision. If you have guns in the house with children the said children need to be trained to know that guns can kill and assume that a gun is always loaded. It is OK to train a child to shoot on a target range and respect a gun but not to be left alone with the gun. In a home with a child all weapons need to be unloaded, the trigger locked and the gun locked up.

Where was the adult supervision in that home?

Texting Stupidity

I was reading an article in this morning’s paper and could not believe my eyes. It was about young people who start texting in the middle of a job interview. I thought, “How stupid is that?”  Answering a text while you are interviewing for a job is the limit of disrespect and thoughtlessness. It is almost as bad as texting while driving but not quite as bad as texting during sex.

People think they can multi task and text while doing other things. Some how we are not teaching the idea that there are times when it is just not appropriate to answer a text. Come to think of it just having your cell phone on during a job interview is not a good idea. I can only think that the person seeking that job tweeted, “Suddenly the job interview ended and I didn’t get the job I don’t know why.”

Texting at inappropriate times is becoming the norm and it is driving me nuts. It happens in theaters, church, business meetings and many other places where it should not. People are doing it automatically during conversations when their phone vibrates buzzes or plays an obnoxious tune. Out comes their phone and the thumbs get busy without missing beat of the conversation. It is so rude to the other people involved. The text can wait but we have so trained our brains to the idea that we must respond NOW!

So much for my rant today, I guess I am an old fuddy duddy of a quickly passing generation of polite people who at least say excuse me for the interruption.

Palestinians

The people we now call Palestinians are the indigenous people of the Holy land plus a few more mixed in. Most are not Arabs. When I worked in Jordan there was a big difference between the Arabs and the Palestinians. Both groups would let you know about it.

The base group for the indigenous people in the Holy Land is the Canaanites who were residents in the Holy Land long before Abraham arrived about 2000 BC. They were not one nation but many city states that fought each other. When out numbered their plan was to join up with the attacking nation. They did this with the Hebrews, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians Greeks, Romans and Arabs. They intermarried with everyone, Jews included. Doing this they became a melting pot in the Holy Land.

It is correct to say that they have never ruled themselves after their city states fell but they stayed in the land. They did not care who ruled them as long as they could live in peace. They have had a continued presence in the Holy Land for over five thousand years and never gave up their claim to the land.

The Hebrews did have a kingdom for almost five hundred years before they were hauled off to Babylon for seventy years. When they came back they were ruled by Persia and then the Greeks. Around 135 BC they rebelled against the Greeks but were taken over by the Romans. They rebelled against Rome in 68 AD and were destroyed by Rome in 70 AD. Some Jews returned to Judea around 130 and rebelled again. This time the Romans rooted our every Jew in the area and would not let them return. They renamed the place Palestine. The Arabs invaded around 800 AD when all of the Palestinians were Christian and many Palestinians are still Christian. As you know the Jews began sneaking into the Holy Land after WWI when the British took control of the Holy Land from the Ottomans. After world war two they swarmed into Palestine and at first purchased land from locals who were willing to sell. After 1948 they just took what they wanted. Is it any wonder the Palestinians are upset?

There is enough blame on both sides. I pray for a just peace between the two nations of peoples. It is not an easy thing to do because there are those on both sides who a hate the other and want them destroyed. Neither side can do that to the other. When I worked on a dig in Israel I discovered that 90 percent of people on both side want a just peace with two states it is that ten percent on each side that stirs up hate and discontent. SAD! I pray for peace in the Holy Land every day.

GUNS: Rights and Violence

I have been following the debate about guns, both about rights and violence. Both sides have valid points and there seems to be no middle ground. The extremes on both sides of the issue make it almost impossible to reach a logical solution. To make matters worse their paranoia is fueled by each others rhetoric. Those who propose a reasonable plan to provide for both gun rights and public safety are shot down by both sides.

As a Libertarian I have a strong belief in the second amendment and as a Mayor responsible for public safety I am concerned about the people who are willing to do violence like that of Sandy Hook and Boston. It is a tough issue to deal with. The people who suffered the trauma of those kinds of actions require some action to stop it from happening again.

The Second Amendment states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

When this amendment was crafted the new United States of America relied totally on the state militia to fight wars. Each state militia required its citizens to provide their own weapons which at that time were muskets. The federal army was very small and not well provided for by congress. Times have changed. Today the state militia is called the National Guard and is well provided for by both federal and state governments, as modern weapons of war are more complicated. We are still relying on them to fight wars. The Second Amendment was designed for our national defense. The up shot of well armed citizenry is that any nations that would dear to send troops to invade us would be met by gun fire from almost every house and cave. I know private citizens who are very good shots.

The other side of the coin is the violence that seems to be happening with greater frequency every year. How do we deal with that issue? I do note that not all of it is committed with guns but a lot of it has been. This is a difficult issue for all of us as a greater population has produced more violent people, most of them men. There have always been angry violent men in this world who enjoy killing people. Ad to that the testosterone poisoning that makes young adult males so aggressive and you have problems. One way or another they will make trouble. They will find someone to sell them guns, purchase enough fireworks to make bombs or use knives to kill innocent people just because they can. How can we control this problem that is now world wide?

Some how we need to be able to think this through and it will not be easy unless both sides of the issue are willing to come to the table and talk sense and at this point that is not happening. We do not need to collect and destroy guns and no one is really trying to do that even though the fear mongers are raising that idea for gun owners to react about. Perhaps the term “Well Regulated Militia” has some room for regulating who can legally purchase weapons of the military variety as some people should not have them. Is it possible to register guns in such a way so that if a gun is used in a crime they can be traced with out people fearing that registering their guns will be used against them? The tricky part is protecting everyone else’s right at the same time. Public safety is important but so is our constitutional rights and both need to be addressed. I doubt that our congress is able to do that any time soon. 

Cataracts and New Vision

When I was in the fourth grade I fell from a tree and my left eye went dark. I did not have a black eye I just could not see light through that eye. Over time and with help from a chiropractor vision returned but it was very fuzzy. For the first time in my life I was fitted for glasses. My right eye was excellent and the left eye was not completely correctable. My left lens was so thick my glasses leaned to the left. As an adult I gave up on trying to correct my left eye and stopped wearing glasses. Then I turned thirty and my right eye needed help reading but I used a balanced lens for the left side. The practice continued through trifocals.

A few years ago my eye doctor said I was developing cataracts and in about ten years I would need surgery. It turned out that they were the fast developing kind. Vision in my right eye dimmed, the sky turned a bit gray, colors faded. I take care of the floors in our house and the dust bunnies were some how able to hide in plain sight. While both eyes were growing cataracts I began to notice that vision was actually improving some what in my left eye. Formerly I could not make out the big E on the eye chart but this year I could read the second line down.

Cataract surgery was amazing. In ten minutes they removed the cataract and implanted a corrective lens first in the right eye and two weeks later, yesterday, in the left eye. After many years my right eye was 20/20 for distance reading is another matter. The left eye is a new treat for me after sixty years I have great vision in it and can even read. WOW!!!! It is a new world to enjoy with both eyes.

I am so thankful.

Assumptions

All of us assume things from our own point of view. It is a natural process that can get us into trouble. A man told me he was in the army and was working base security. I wrongly assumed that he was Military Police and said so to another man who checked it out. I was most embarrassed to discover that I was wrong.

We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are. Often we assume that this is the way they should be. Many of our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions. A Republican experiencing a health funding issue might assume that the “Obama Care” affordable health care law is the problem and will state it that way. A Democrat having the same issue assumes that it is the problem of insurance companies getting every last cent out of the consumer.

Our theory for how things should be is only as good as our assumptions. If the premises are false, our theories have no real scientific status. The only fair criterion for judging the validity of our theory is with the examination of the facts not assumptions. Our ability to confront our own assumptions is not an easy thing to develop and it takes time, effort and dedication to the truth.

Have you checked the facts about your assumptions lately?

Respect and Political Disagreemen

I believe that One of the great strengths of our republic is our freed to freely speak and print our political opinions. We all have opinions and we each believe that our opinions are correct or else we would not hold them. At this point in time there is a great chasm between democrats and republicans and very little room for compromise. Over the years it has been the ability to reach a compromise that has made good government possible. There have also been times when divisions were so great that no one listened to the other side. The worst case was in 1860 when Lincoln was elected President and the civil war erupted.

I believe in the principle of the loyal opposition to the party in power as a guiding light. If I loose an election I can oppose the leader’s position but still respect the office and the person holding that office. Respect for one another is the main key to our system of government and there has been a lot of that lacking on both sides of the spectrum. There is a big difference between honest disagreement and hatred. Honest disagreement helps to build consensuses while hatred only tears down and makes consensuses almost impossible. Hatred is something that destroys the vessel that holds it.

Some people that I love dearly have claimed that our current president is the worst we have ever had. I disagree with that position; he does not even come close to being the worst. President Richard Nixon was the worst and I once worked to get him elected. President Grant would come in at number two. Having said that I note the there has been some good in the worst of our presidents and some bad in the best of them.