My Two Cents on Guns

During the recent theater shootings in Aurora I was blissfully unplugged from the news.  I was visiting my parents and we did not have the TV or radio on.  The newspapers delivered to the door kept us about a day behind the current events.  At one point I went online to check email and discovered the horrible story after the president had already addressed the nation and the usual unpleasant squabbling had begun in the wake of such gun related tragedy.  I closed my computer and turned my focus to the puppet show my kids were putting on, and sitting with my dad, and finding the kids' goggles before going to the pool.  The nightmare in Aurora would be there after my vacation and I didn't see the point of letting it in early.

Now the mass shooting of the moment in the news isn't across the country.  It's the next zip code over, and just miles down on the road that runs by our home.  A Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI, just south of Milwaukee, was attacked by at least one gunman, and although at this moment there aren't too many details available, we know six innocent people are dead.  I don't have the luxury of turning away because now the nightmare is in my own community.  It's horrifying.

I've been trying to process some of the rhetoric that's been flying around in the aftermath of so much pointless suffering, and I feel like working through my thoughts on guns.  I have no legislative power and threaten anybody's rights on this issue, so these opinions are just that and nothing more.  If I push someone's buttons try not to take it personally.