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All the misguided legislation in the world won't change the cold, hard facts.

January 18, 2013

Compassion Moves To Action

I have two friends that love animals. (I love animals, too.) My first friend nearly wrecked my car by grabbing my steering wheel to miss a raccoon crossing the road. She endangered my life and hers by doing this (and we wouldn’t have hit the animal anyway). In a separate incident, my second friend accidentally ran over a raccoon, but went back to check on the condition of the animal (from the safety of his car). The animal’s back was obviously broken, but the animal was still alive and suffering, so my friend ran over the animal again to put it out of its misery. He had tears in his eyes as he did so. I’ve thought about these two situations many times. One friend endangered human life, supposedly in concern for an animal. The second friend considered human life first (by not swerving), but then out of compassion, put the animal out of its misery.

My point: True compassion is not a knee-jerk “we have to do something” reaction. To be truly compassionate and to truly help others, one must act, not just re-act. This requires a habit of thought in consideration to the overall situation and to the long term benefit in the situation. If you are not in the habit of thinking, checking your facts, and then acting, you need to change this habit to be truly compassionate. You’ll need to research your facts to make sure the action(s) you are taking is really going to help, and help in the long-term, and not create other, worse problems.

You don’t throw water on an electrical fire. Nor do you put water on a grease fire. By doing so, you can turn a controllable issue into one that is uncontrollable. When you buy a fire extinguisher, you must look at the rating to see what types of fires the particular extinguisher addresses.

Many assume Washington politicians are experts at putting out fires, but honestly, our current politicians seem to be experts at one thing only – winning popularity contests with the popular. Being prudent is not so popular anymore. As a matter of fact, it’s a downright lonely road. But when you think about it, standing for truth has always been unpopular.

I believe that most who act without thinking are just acting because of what others will/may think. It is obvious that Obama is not interested in really helping anyone, but grandstanding (and still campaigning) for attention and power, ignoring facts to get the spotlight and to show that “he cares.” Those who continue to support him just ignore the facts, cause they just love ’em so much. Even cursory research on gun violence reveals:

1) 75% of homicides are committed in inner city areas.

2) 30% of homicides are committed with something other than a gun.

3) 75% of homicides committed with guns are committed with handguns.

4) 94% of homicides committed with guns are committed with guns used in more than one crime and that were stolen or illegally obtained. (On point 4, I found stats ranging from 86% lowest to 99.99% highest).

As horrible as mass shootings are, they are a very small number compared to those killed in inner city violence every day/year. What has Obama done to address this problem, other than to blame this violence on poverty, and to blame this poverty on the rich for not paying their fair share?

As for non-terrorist related mass shootings, the problem is a mental health issue, and liberal policies have encouraged the mass mental health epidemic that we are confronted with. However, we now have to deal with the problem, not complain about it. So if we have children with mental health problems, we need to get help for our little dears. But once they take up a gun, put on their body armor, and head for the local school or theater, they must be stopped, no matter what kind of weapon they have, and by whatever means.

I’ve been in countries that do not allow private gun ownership, and yet their police carry fully automatic weapons and wear body armor. Put a fully armed officer with body armor in our schools, and I’m sure the shootings will stop, or will be stopped. And you don’t even need to trample the 2nd amendment to accomplish it! Isn’t that what we really want? For mass shootings (and dictatorships) to never happen again?

These are the cold, hard facts that all the misguided legislation in the world won’t change. So do you really want a solution, Mr. President? Or do you just want to be the first dictator of the U.S.S.A.? How about you, America? What do you want?

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