Posted this on my Facebook page courtesy of a friend and got quite a bit of debate going on:

To everyone who is calling for stricter gun laws in light of the tragedy in Tucson, may I offer this little tidbit: If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat! Remember: Hold the person accountable for their actions, not the means they chose to utilize!!!

If you want to see all the comments check it out.

Arizona is one of only three states that do not require a license to carry a concealed weapon, I think the state has some responsibility in this tragedy.  CT (where I live) requires I take a gun safety course, have my finger prints taken and sent to the State Police to make sure I am not a felon (felons don’t get guns LEGALLY in CT) then I get the permit.  It takes between 4 to 6 weeks, which would certainly be a cooling off period if someone was pissed off enough and had no impulse control.

The young man who committed the horrific crime in Arizona was mentally unbalanced.  The police had a 51 page report about this young man and he was kicked out of his college because he had some mental health issues.  His parents knew he had problems but their hands were tied.  How does a parent deal with that?  I remember a very long time ago a young man who I knew from my grandmother’s neighborhood had some mental health issues.  His parents knew it because he lived with them and they had locks on their bedroom door to keep him out, but they couldn’t do anything!  One night he lost it and broke down their door and confronted them with a knife. He slit his father’s throat and his mother’s hands (defensive wounds), she somehow managed to call the police and as the police came in the door, he slit his own throat as he walked down the stairs, the police shot him dead.  What we need are better ways of helping people with mental health issues, if the parents of these two mentioned young men had recourse into getting help for their sons, then these two tragedies could have been prevented. 

I bet there’s a bunch more tragedies you can think of that could have been prevented if we could get people the mental health help that they need.

I’ve already heard some of the comments about banning citizens from owning fire-arms.  Naturally when a tragedy such as what took place in Arizona happens people get their panties all bunched up and start demanding that we change the 2nd amendment, which gives us the right to bear arms.  Here’s what they don’t realize.  If a person wants to shoot someone they will find a way, if they cannot get a gun legally they will get one illegally, they don’t care.  Obviously the people who commit these heinous type of acts are unstable and wouldn’t care how they got the required weapons to implement their plans. 

I plan on doing some research about this topic to find out about how many people actually have permits to carry guns and how many of those people actually commit these horrible crimes.  I think we would be better served to try to find a way to stop the trafficking of illegal fire arms that cannot be traced, then from limiting law-abiding citizens who take the classes and are responsible gun owners from owning fire arms.

I woke up at about 1:45 this morning and thought, oh no, I forgot to write the blog!!  I’m not making excuses but…I have my little (almost) three-year old grandson staying with me because his mom just had a baby and I have been SOOOO busy, that I totally forgot!

But this is what I wanted to blog about; today I was sitting in the courthouse, just in front of the metal detectors watching the people enter.  A young woman approached carrying a baby and as she came through the metal detector, it went off.  So she says to the guard, it must be the cell phone.  She takes the cell phone out of her pocket, puts it on TOP of the scanning device that all bags, purses, etc must go through, then she goes around the metal detector and back through without setting it off; picks up her cell phone and continues into the courthouse!   She was not the only one that did this and I just don’t understand what the purpose of the security systems are for, if people can avoid putting certain items through the scanning process.  Can’t a cell phone be modified to become something other than what it looks like?  If we are this lax with security at the courthouse, where else are we lacking in our security?