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Friday, February 8, 2013

Gun Control and How Teens Think

The follow essay was written by my seventeen year old son. He wrote it without any input from me, but I assume he has been influenced by being around me.
We live in a rural area of the North Georgia mountains, where most of his friends and parents of his friend are either hunters or own some sort of fire arm.
This was for a project in school, I don't know what kind of grade he got, but I think he got it mostly right, regardless of what you hear from the white house. If we have more seniors in high school that can actually think for themselves, we still may hope.
I just cut and pasted his word file, with his permission, with no revision.



Gun control is a very controversial topic in America at this point in time. It was never really made a big deal out of until the Sandy Hook shootings, but shootings have never been a good thing obviously. Basically what I have gathered from the poll research is that something tragic has to happen to make people believe a certain thing, which has been evident in the past with things such as the Watergate scandal and the Iran – Contra scandal. The fifth poll that said, “Have you done any research on gun control laws after the Sandy Hook incident”, which I believe is trying to imply that it takes something like that to make a nation of people more concerned. If the question had been asked “How much research on gun control had you done before the Sandy Hook incident?”, then I guarantee there would not have been close to the reported 69 percent.
            The second conclusion I have come to is that most people do not do research on most things anyway. By “things” I mainly mean in terms of these gun bans proposed by Obama. The automatic rifle ban would possibly be one of the least effective bills passed. One reason is that convicted criminals and people that want to get weapons and kill people are going to do it no matter what a law says, they aren’t planning on following the laws anyway obviously. Secondly due to the fact that nearly 23 percent more people are killed by cigarette smoke, why would we propose a law banning assault rifles when more people are committing suicide smoking. Third, it is not usually assault rifles that are used in most shooting incidents, it is handguns. Making a ban on handguns would be way more effective than assault rifles, but like I said earlier criminals aren’t going to follow any rules anyway. I think things should maybe be a bit stricter on the security and self defense end, such as letting teachers or at least one faculty member keep a concealed weapon, but I do not believe bans will change much.
            I do in fact believe that gun control could change an election outcome in the future. If a president says they want to take away gun rights they will probably lose a good bit of their voters. In most polls way more people supported more gun rights than less, usually a good majority at least. If a presidential candidate wants to try and do it they will probably lose unless they have a really good argument. 
 


Thursday, January 24, 2013

Women in Combat (Womb to Tomb?)

I was just sitting here pondering the latest news about letting women in combat rolls. I guess this is just the way it is now days, women should be able to do anything a man can. Don't get me wrong, if they want to go out and put themselves in harms way, more power to them. I appreciate the fact that there are actual women that are not afraid to fire a weapon at another person, or to take a chance on being in the back lines with a bunch of men who are full adrenaline and testosterone. Then again if they look like the women that are fight for the right for these women to fight, they probably don't have much to worry about from the men anyway.
They have already invade the Masters Golf club, wedged their way into little league football teams and now, combat? Where do we go from here?
Do we carry this to the ends' degree?
This is my list, you are welcome to add to it as you see fit.
Women should be able to stand to pee with having to drop their drawers.
Women should be able to walk around topless with a beer in their hand at NASCAR races.
Women should be able to get men pregnant.
Women should be able to have a sex with as many men as she wants without being called a whore.
Women should be able to skip the whole monthly ordeal.
Women should be able to run and jog with out a bra.

Really, with just a bit of sarcasm, but think about this. If women were equal, then there wouldn't be a WNBA they could play with the men. There wouldn't be men and women's separate events in the Olympics. Women would be allowed to be boxers or in the UFC,(WWF wrestling doesn't count).
Just some food for thought, if Hillary would have been a republican man, his testimony would have been from a jail cell. But the standards are a lot different for people now than years ago. I guess change is inevitable, but I hope women will always be different than men, I kinda like it that way.






 

Monday, January 14, 2013

Football and Politics

Ok, here we are, the Monday after the playoffs and all people are talking about is how the Falcons pulled it out in the last seconds of the game. Or they are talking about the tweet Tebow's brother sent out about "am I the only one happy that Denver lost?" big whoop.
In the mean time, gas is still above $3.25 a gallon, a lot more in some places and the national debt is growing faster than ever. The president is on the radio and tv today trying to blame the republicans again for all the problems wrong in the world. Never mind the fact, the democrats have had the White house and the Senate for the past four years.
The politicians continue with the same ole stuff, blame each other for everything. They never stand up and just say, "I'm sorry we miscalculated, we are going to do what ever we can to fix it." There is just to many people in Washington trying to protect the paycheck that is four times the median wage in the US. Football players at least go out and give 100% for their money, and we get to see what they do in the light of day. Where the politician hides in the back room making deals, runs to blame the other guy and refuses to answer a question honestly. Remember this, "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it'." How well would that work anywhere else?
How did we ever get to the point where $3.00 a gallon a gas seems normal. When Blame it on Bush left office, the gas price was down to $1.85 in most places. Obama promised to do something to curb the US taste for oil, go green, well all he did was take more spending money from the working class to survive. We have grown so use to this, that when the gas comes down to $3.10 or $3.05 people rush to the station like this is incredible, buy it now before it goes back up. It all a matter of conditioning. Just like a town expects a team to loose or win, if something happens out of the ordinary, there is an excitement or let down. People have seem to lost this excitement with things that matter.
Were I am going with this? This is the new world, the world where no one cares anymore about Washington is doing, political talk radio is dying and people are throwing up there hands and saying you win, we will do what we have to do to get by. They turn to sports, to TV, to whatever to keep from thinking about the things that really matter. For that point, don't think most people don't even know what really matters anymore. They know that gas prices are way to high, they don't know why, but they see the price. They know it cost more at the grocery store and at the pharmacy, but they don't know why, but they pay the price, because that is just what it cost.
The press is quick to cover the school shootings and people are outraged that a bunch of kids they don't know were killed. But these same people are just as outraged when an official at the stadium makes a bad call and it their team looses. The sad part about this is, they will stay more pissed off at the ref, than the fact the same government that promises to do something about the school shooting is the same government that failed to protect it's own people at the embassy in Benghazi. They don't see the same outrage when, our dollar gets weaker and weaker around the world and that China and Russia arn't scared to stand up to our president, just like Baltimore wasn't scared to stand up to Peyton Manning. We keep playing this way and it will probably come down to overtime and sudden death takes on an entire new meaning.
So here we are, Football playoff season, the tax season is coming and the the people will want their refunds. Fans of the ball games of the ones that lost, walk around depressed saying maybe next year, in the mean time we all loose at the tax office and never look for a better season next year.
Think things will ever change? Not unless we fire the head coach (Obama) his assistants (Biden, Reid and Pelosi) and get rid of the entire staff (senate and congress) and go for better picks in the upcoming draft.
Good luck to us all on a better season next year.