Gun Control

   In the wake of the unthinkable massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school last Friday, new debates on gun control have taken over the air waves. Everything in this country, ultimately, turns in to a political debate. It makes the executives at Fox News and CNN happy as their ratings grow, but these debates take away from the focus of what the real problems are.

   This isn’t Global Warming or the tax code, this effects  the well-being and safety of every single American! It does not matter what your age, gender, color, race or bank account is…random acts of violence knows no boundaries. These tragedies can occur without warning or reason. Just like acts of terrorism, it is impossible to stop every potential act. However, it is possible to make these acts as difficult as possible to perform.

   After 9/11, the government created the TSA. The TSA’s sole responsibility was to make sure no one ever boards as U.S. plane with anything resembling a weapon. Those who travel by plane know how annoying it is to stand in security lines and have to dis-robe before they enter the metal detector. As bothersome as it is, the necessity far outweighs the annoyance.

   Other than Tim McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, most every other massacre is perpetrated with the use of a gun or guns. One must ask why guns are the weapon of choice to commit these heinous crimes. The answer is simple…it’s very easy and quick to kill with a gun. Building a bomb takes time and money. First, the would-be killer needs to learn how to make a bomb. Then they need to buy the bomb-making materials. Then they need build the actual bomb. Then they need to figure out a way to get the bomb inside the potential killing field. Then they need to find the best place to put the bomb to kill as many people as possible. Then they need to set the bomb off and hope it explodes. There is no guarantee a bomb will explode especially for  a novice bomb maker.

   We live in a remote-control society. Count how many remotes you have in your home and you’ll know what I mean. Killing with a gun is tantamount to killing with via remote control…standing there pressing a button is all you have to do. It’s easy, it’s quick, it takes minimal effort and gets maximum results and that it what our society is all about.

   Gun enthusiast are making the most head-scratching excuses saying what happened last Friday had nothing to do with guns and everything to do with mental illness. if Adam Lanza did not have access to his mother’s guns, would he still have murdered all those innocent people? I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that he could have done just as much damage with a knife and as stated earlier, building a bomb is not the easiest thing to do. He took his mother’s guns because they were there and killing with a gun is too easy…that is why it is the weapon of choice for these murderers.

   Mental illness is an epidemic that is spreading like a bad virus.  Combine that with our kid’s mind’s that are saturated with violence you have a very scary formula that creates these types of massacres. Everything must be done to try and prevent this from happening…EVERYTHING!!! Stronger gun laws and a ban on all assault weapons WILL make it harder to commit these crimes. Again, if Lanza did not have access to his mother’s guns, what would he have done? Would he have tried to buy illegal guns? Maybe, and maybe he would have bought illegal guns from an undercover agent who could have prevented this from happening. This isn’t about the government taking away people’s guns, this is about protecting our most innocent of of people….our children!

   If making guns harder to obtain prevents just one of these senseless acts of violence then it is worth it. How anyone can think other wise is beyond me. If a person truly feels that President Obama is trying to take away their guns and turn us in to the old Soviet Union then pack your bags and get out. There’s about 200 other countries around the world to live in. This is not a political issue folks! This is not left-wing right-wing. This is about protecting our citizens and doing everything to prevent this.  Some say teachers should be armed with guns of their own. Let me ask this, if someone walks in to a classroom with weapon already drawn and, presumably, the teacher’s weapon is in their draw or holster, what do you think will happen? The teacher would be killed before they had a chance to retrieve their weapon. What’s next, arm each student?

   What happened last Friday makes me sick to my stomach. The subsequent debates make me angry. People are so brainwashed in this country that they actually believe they need to own gun(s) to protect themselves against the government. Even though the vast majority of gun owners are level-headed people, too many guns fall in to the wrong hands. Everything and I mean everything must be done to prevent this from happening. Just like with the TSA following 9/11 and airport security, if it prevents just one senseless act then it is worth it.

High Gas Prices…Who’s To Blame?

Just when it looked like our nation’s economy was finally starting to gain to positive momentum, that evil entity knows as high gas prices came back to rear its ugly head and derail a potential recovery. We in New Jersey have some of the lowest gas prices in the nation but that only makes the salt in the wound a little less painful. We all cringe when we have to fill up our tanks. We look at the digital read out on the pump and it keeps going and going and GOING! So, who is to blame for this? The answer to this question depends on who you ask it to. If you turn on Fox News or the Rush Limbaugh radio show, they blame President Obama. They also blame this president for every malady facing this world so that’s not a surprise. If you turn on MSNBC they blame the big bad oil companies. Others blame OPEC for not increasing oil output. In the opinion of this writer, the lion’s share of the blame belongs to the traders (or traitors as I like to call them) on Wall Street. Just like any other commodity, oil is traded based on the laws of supply and demand. Oil production keeps going up as more and more of the fossil fuel gets discovered and is excavated. So, the supply side is not the cause. Demand keeps going down as more and more people ditch their gas guzzling SUV’s for more fuel efficient vehicles. So if supplies are up and demand is down…why does the price keep going up? I’ll tell you why. It’s market manipulation. Wall Street traders drive the price up as much as they greedily can and then sell it all off and cash in like bank robbers. Of course there’s a lot more to high gas prices then that, I was just giving one example.

The people who should not get the blame are the individual gas stations…in fact they are helping us. Just like any other business, they can charge what they want for their services. Let’s face it, they could charge $10 a gallon and we’d have no choice but to pay it. There is no alternative. We need fuel for our cars. Truth is, they make very little money of gasoline sales. Some stations don’t make any money at all. They make their money off mini-marts and car washes and repair shops. They do their best to keep the price of gas down hurting their own bottom line in the process.

I’ve seen it quite often…the station attendants getting chewed out by an irate customer. I understand the customer’s angst and frustration but these poor attendants do not set or control the price. All they do is pump the gas; it’s the station owners who set the price but, like I said, they do their best to keep prices down as best they can.

As upset as you are about the high price of gas, just keep in mind what you’ve just read. Don’t unleash your fury on the person pumping your gas. Direct your fury toward the real culprits…the TRAITORS on Wall Street.  Write your congressperson and tell him/her about what you just read in this blog. If we put enough pressure on Washington, maybe they will finally do what’s needed to stop Wall Street from raping Americans at the gas station.