Friday, December 14, 2012

Stepping upto the soapbox for a sec.

Today, I spent the minutes that I could spare reading the news and reading everyone's tweets and Facebook statuses regarding the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I've taught in an early learning center and after school program, i have elementary aged students who I train, have family members in elementary school, family members who are teachers, and have helped to raise my older sister's
daughter who is the light of my life. I can only imagine a fraction of what the families of those children are really going through. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Events like these have become quite frequent and every time it happens I hear a cry for Gun Control and the subsequent response of the Pro-Gun/2nd Amendment groups. I often hear things like, "Well if someone there had a gun they could've shot the bad guy!" and "That guy shouldn't have had a gun. We need GUN CONTROL! Get rid of all the guns!!!!" We need to look at situations like this as calmly and objectively as possible. If we are going to look at this as an epidemic, we need to treat is as such. We can't just treat symptoms. We need to cure the disease. If we take guns out of the hands of the bad guys and the mentally unstable, then we still have those same people and they can still do bad things in a different way.

In my opinion, too many people are not taught to lead their own lives. They are taught to rely on the government, a deity(deities), or someone else to make things better. This creates people who do not know how to their solve problems. When people who don't know how to help themselves realize that the system they relied on failed them, they become bitter, resentful, and often times violent. What makes someone do bad things is their inability to deal with situations in a constructive manner. If a person can't be constructive, they will become destructive.

The people that can't effectively lead their own lives and are mentally unstable are slipping through the cracks. These people need help and are often misdiagnosed and then mistreated. Often times they are turned away by people and a system that can't/won't help them. There has to be a way to fix that.

We can't expect the politicians or law enforcement officers to swoop in and save the day. We have to save ourselves and each other. We can't keep settling for the lowest common denominator. We have to get better as a society...as a community.

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