GUNS, GUNS, GUNS: Did we mention GUNS?!?!

Change! Change! I’m pretty sure it’s replaced space as the final frontier. Everybody seems to want everything to change…except the real source where any change can come from. So here is possibly going to be the only rant I will ever make.

I’m tired of this stuff. It seems like this is just becoming the normal. I see people complain on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. “America sucks, I’m tired of guns, I hate this, I hate that”, then they go to school, work, hang out with their friends, eat, and go to sleep. Then the next day, here we are again- complaining again about everything. I’d love to say, “If you hate everything so much, then leave!”- but the truth is YOU’RE ALREADY GONE! If you see the world has problems and your best response is to complain about everything all day, every day, without doing anything, YOU’RE ALREADY GONE! It’s foolish to act otherwise. “I plan on doing stuff to fix this town, city, country, world…eventually, possibly, someday…maybe”- nobody needs your attitude! What’s stopping you from doing something now? The real answer is nothing. “I argued with 50 people on the internet”- awesome you wasted your time, and had 50 less real, authentic conversations than you could have today. Honestly, it boils down to this- either you are doing something to help people, or you’re not. And if you’re not, please, step out of the way, until you wish to contribute. But at some point, a choice has to be made, we can't just keep complaining about everything, if you truly wish to see change.

One of the most prominent examples that has been permeating throughout all of social media is GUNS, GUNS, GUNS: DID WE MENTION GUNS? And it’s not that I don’t think anything needs to be done about guns, but really? Get rid of all guns, get rid of all scary guns, “here, I found some stupid chart, statistics, or a graph” – these are the BEST solutions that we can think of? Meanwhile, nobody realizes that all we’ve done is come up with ways to remove the branches of the tree, while its roots are still growing.

For example, I keep seeing this statistic: “In the past 30 years, no armed civilian has stopped a mass shooting” – News flash! In the past 30 years no unarmed civilian has stopped a mass shooting either. Interestingly enough, there’s only one way to stop a mass shooting; be the people involved in the mass shooting, and have a change of heart. Mass shootings either happen or they don’t happen, whether it's because the people involved chicken out, or because someone prevents it entirely. Unless you’re waiting for Superman to block the first bullet and then apprehend the criminals, you’re not stopping a mass shooting. If we’re going to go full speed ahead, In the past 100 years nobody, unarmed or armed has stopped a mass shooting, because nobody goes around saying “Selfie! We’re about to shoot a bunch of people at this place in like 5 mins, somebody please come stop us!” It doesn’t happen! I also like how nobody has expanded on that statistic. The original statistic excluded ALL scenarios where someone got hurt or killed, even if someone did stop the incident from being worse than it could have been. That’s a nonsensical statistic! Especially when we're practically discounting the scenarios that are as close as anyone can ever get to stopping a mass shooting! If we got rid of guns, we’d have no mass shootings? We need a little more thought than that. This statement only holds up if we lived in a vacuum. Take away the guns, there’s still going to be mass killings until we get to the root of the problem. You want to know what the root of the problem? Ourselves! We've got to do better.

As Sam Harris put it, “Fantasists and zealots can be found on both sides of the debate over guns in America. On the one hand, many gun-rights advocates reject even the most sensible restrictions on the sale of weapons to the public. On the other, proponents of stricter gun laws often seem unable to understand why a good person would ever want ready access to a loaded firearm. Between these two extremes we must find grounds for a rational discussion about the problem of gun violence… Seventy mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. since 1982, leaving 543 dead. These crimes were horrific, but 564,452 other homicides took place in the U.S. during the same period. Mass shootings scarcely represent 0.1 percent of all murders. When talking about the problem of guns in our society, it is easy to lose sight of the worst violence and to become fixated on symbols of violence… Rather than new laws, I believe we need a general shift in our attitude toward public violence—wherein everyone begins to assume some responsibility for containing it. It is worth noting that this shift has already occurred in one area of our lives, without anyone’s having received special training or even agreeing that a change in attitude was necessary: Just imagine how a few men with box cutters would now be greeted by their fellow passengers at 30,000 feet. Perhaps we can find the same resolve on the ground” – And I can’t agree more. This problem looks like it’s going to be solved the sooner we, as individuals and communities, start taking responsibility for our actions.

If you complain about everything but never do anything, except provide excuses for why you haven’t done anything- you’re part of the problem. You don’t need money to volunteer. You can feed the homeless and help those less fortunate than you in various capacities for free. It costs nothing to be kind to everyone you come in contact with, listen to people, understand people (more than just hearing what they have to say so you respond back), meet your neighbors, make new friends, etc. The steps that we can take to get engaged in our communities, in our world are quite easy to put into action. Yeah, it might not be what you want to do to “fix” the world, but it’s more than sitting around talking about how much everything sucks, when it’s you, in fact, who actually sucks because you’re sitting around acting like you can’t do anything. You never know who you’ve passed by and what they’ve been dealing with. Stop neglecting people FOR ANY REASON, and we could see things turn around.

“It’s okay, I hate the haters”- you’re part of the problem! I’m glad you think you’re a hero, but all you’re really doing is adding fuel to the fire. I find it funny that we talk about how much we hate bullying, being racist, sexist, etc. yet we go right back on the offensive, and our excuse is “He was a bigot”, “She said this…”, “They did this…”, so what? So it was necessary to talk about them all over social media, and get your friends to all gang up on one person you have a problem with? Tell me more about how that’s not bullying! Tell me more about how you’re changing the world for the better! I’ll wait. Fighting hate with hate is the stupidest thing ever. Hint: it's not going fix anything! And I understand that it gets called gaslighting, but I'll wait for one wait for a scenario where something terrible was done in hatred and didn't cause an equal or greater reaction in return.

I’m truly convinced that we could see an end to these kinds of problems if we truly started investing in one another. It doesn’t matter if they politic differently than you, religion differently than you, feel differently than you, etc. that shouldn’t be the deciding factor on how we treat other people. And trashing people who are on the “other side” isn’t helping at all. It’s time we start realizing this. The world doesn’t need more half-hearted, “I plan on doing something eventually” type characters. WE HAVE ENOUGH OF THOSE! There’s nothing wrong with starting small, however. If you don’t go to neighborhood meeting, community meetings, county meetings, state meetings, write letters to officials, initiate change in some way, start taking intrest in those around you who you could help; stop all your wishing and go sit down. If you’re just complaining about everything, and doing nothing, all your intentions are meaningless. And if you don't know where to start, there are people who do! Ask somebody, find a way to get involved. There's almost no reason for excuses anymore.

I’m all for internet awareness, but without any action on your part, it’s meaningless. All it screams is that you care about making people know you care about whatever happened. That’s really cool and all, but it also shows that you don’t actually care enough to do anything. Yeah, you can’t change whatever event happened in the past, but again even the smallest steps can help. And if others join in, then it’s no longer a small movement. But just posting things on the internet and talking about how everything sucks, boo hoo, is like saying you tried to do something. Fine, the system is broken. But if you don’t do anything to make life better for others, to help others, don’t even bring it up. Awareness is great, but it doesn’t solve anything alone. If you’re waiting for people to get into action, you’re going to be waiting a long time. We complain about things like guns being the problem. Sorry, but if anybody wants to kill somebody, I don’t care if it’s a shoe, a hanger, a Popsicle stick, they’ll do it, or attempt to, etc. And again, that's not saying we don't need gun laws, or to revise gun laws, and make changes to gun safety overall; but that can't be the first thing we do, without regulating ourselves above anything else.

But you know what prevents us from getting to that point? Showing people love and kindness more so than they’ve ever known, being genuine humans all the time, not just when an issue is popular and gets you likes on Facebook, or 15 minutes on T.V. A gun can only damage if someone is behind the trigger, but it’s what doesn’t need a trigger that should scare us. History has proven that we as people have hurt ourselves and others more than any weapon ever could. I find it interesting that the people who are doing the most they can, in any situation, never have the time to complain about everything. That’s food for thought! We don’t require triggers to do damage and destroy others. It’s a funny coincidence; people go off more than guns do, yet everything else is the problem, and not ourselves. This rant is over, but it is something to think about. Are we actually going to start being agents of change, or nah?!? That’s all I have to say.

Love one another, make good decisions!