Gun Violence and My Personal Realm

Last Friday there was a horrible tragedy. A man killed 20 children in an elementary school, most of them 1st graders, using an assault rifle. The scarier part is that there does not appear to be a motive behind his actions.

Although there have been plenty of mass shootings since Columbine in 1999, this is the one that seems to have everyone talking about gun control (finally) because gun violence has finally reached the area that most people did not think it could; an elementary school.

Like most things, I have strong views on guns and gun control in general. Most of these views started out due to what happened around me. They were later confirmed with facts. Below is why I hate guns and feel a need for change.

I have hated guns since Columbine. I was in 6th grade when Columbine happened. I remember I went to a friend's house where it was on the news. We asked her mom what happened and she informed us that some students had brought guns into school and shot their classmates.

At the time, I didn't know that they were carrying assault rifles or that they had been bullied. All I knew was that they has brought guns into school. The thing that popped into my head was a handgun. I thought that they did all that damage with a handgun (or two). I was 11 years old. I didn't know the difference. But it didn't matter. Guns had caused all that damage so therefore guns must be bad.

This was a new discovery for me. Guns had never been a big deal in my house. My parents didn't own any nor did anyone in my family. No one was vocal about them either. It was something that existed in the world that we didn't have to deal with. I played cops and robbers with my friends growing up (I was a huge tom boy). I used water guns and nerf guns to play war. I played GoldenEye on the N64. I was never afraid of them until Columbine.

I'm not about to start saying that we shouldn't allow children to do what I did growing up. I still play GoldenEye. I have played (with total failure at the ability to do anything but be a easy kill for the other team) Call of Duty. I view those as entertainment. But I'm still afraid of the real thing.

Going through high school, I never really changed my opinion nor did I become more vocal about it. Again, it was something that existed outside of my realm of existence. None of my friends owned them nor did anyone hunt or anything like that (we live in Northern VA, not much hunting can be done here). Shootings that happened while I was in high school were again not in my realm. I still believed guns were an issue, but that only happens once every blue moon or only in neighborhoods that are notorious for violence.

It all changed with college.

I went to a college that was safe. There had been zero acts of major violence on my campus since the university was founded. I had no problem being out on my campus in the middle of the night despite the fact that it rested in the middle of a city. I felt safe there. To this day I feel safe there. However, there was a time I didn't feel safe on my campus and it was all because of a gun.

During the first few weeks of college, I had gone to a few events at the student union. I was  freshmen who didn't really party so I went to the school sponsored parties (I know. I was *so* cool). I never had to walk through a metal detector or get frisked. Sure, our police (who were real police not rent-a-cops) were there but they were there to make sure no one was drunk.

One Friday night an event took place at the union. During the event, our basketball players got into a confrontation with a non student over the fact that he wouldn't leave this girl alone. After the event, the non student started to yell at our basketball players. When the players kept walking, ignoring him, the guy open fire. Five of our players were shot. Most were shot because they were running to save their friend.

The shooter got away that night. Our campus went into lock down. From the hall window on my floor, I saw bodies lying on the ground. Bleeding. The police were on the scene within a minute of the gunfire. None of the players died and the shooter was caught within a few days.

The next event I went to at the union was a Halloween dance. It was about two weeks after the shooting. I had started to feel safe again on campus because it wasn't a student who committed the crimes. It changed when I wen to the dance. I was frisked and had to walk through a metal detector. I felt so unsafe. I felt like no one could be trusted anymore.

Shortly after our school implemented new swipe systems where we had to swipe our ID just to get into the lobby of our building. This was a mixture of the fact that a homeless man had made his way into one of our dorm rooms and started to live in an abandon room and the shooting. I yet again didn't feel safe. Why did we need all these security measures if our school was a safe school?

The rest of that semester, I felt uneasy. I began to feel comfortable again on campus when I went to another event in the union and there were no metal detectors. Many students complained about them. They made people feel unsafe and wouldn't have stopped the guy who did the shooting anyway. They were a useless measure that had the reverse effect.

Then the shooting at Virginia Tech happened and guns yet again entered into my realm.

Going to school in Northern Virginia, many people apply to and go to Tech. The shooter went to a high school that is located in the same county as mine. I had many friends that went to Tech. So when the shooting happened, I freaked out. Some of my friends were on their way to that building where the shooting took place. The cell service went down so I couldn't reach my friends to see if they were okay (thankfully, they were). Guns yet again caused chaos in my realm.

I know people who hunt. I know people who own guns. I have even held a gun (it was my brother's military issued handgun). Every time I've been around them, I have felt very uneasy. Very nervous. Guns are the reason that people suffered. Without guns, those incidents above wouldn't have happened. The one at my university might have just turned into a fist fight. The Tech shooting might have just been the shooter committing suicide and not taking other people with him. No one would have died.

I hate guns. They have caused nothing but fear in my life. I am all for allowing people to hunt with them. But why else have them? Allowing such easy access to them allows bad people to get their hands on them. If we regulated guns like we regulate cars and medication, less people would abuse them.

I'm aware that this post has no facts in it. I could write a whole other post where I debunk the arguements of the pro-gun side. But I didn't. I chose to explain why I hate guns. Yes, my life has not been directly affected by it, but I have had too many close calls. I want this to stop before the close calls become a real personal tragedy.

Gun violence has already started to creep into my realm. I want to kick it back out.

~ How can you expect to win this war if you're too afraid to fight?

I Need to Get Back to Writing.....

With teaching, writing for pleasure has fallen to the wayside.

I can't let this happen.

Writing is the one way I feel like I can express myself and fully show the world who I am, what I feel, and what I believe.

I need to make time to write.

I know I have made this type of statement before, but I never really noticed how badly I needed writing. Without it, the only writing medium I have is Facebook which isn't exactly the community that embraces writing beyond "I just got engaged!" or "Today was such a good day!"

I need more than that.

I see so many things in this world that make me angry because they are filled with injustice or harmful to society. I vote, I donate money, and I volunteer. These all get my voice out but not in the way that writing does. Writing gets it to everyone where as those only seem to get my voice to people who agree with me.

I am aware that there is a strong chance that no one will ever read this blog. But I don't care. I need to do this for my sanity. No one else.

I need to write.

I need to have my voice heard.

~Speak your mind even if your voice shakes