Happy Chinese New Year!
Ruff. 🐶 I will be spending it on a 12 hour shift.
On the brighter side…
Watching Red Gerard win the first gold for the USA in the snowboarding event was amazing.
After falling in his first two runs down the slopes, he has a near perfect execution and beautiful flips and turns on his snowboard in his final and third run.
It just reminds me that even if you fall, you get back up and you keep pushing to be the best version of yourself. When you do that, you will get better. What can you do to improve? Where are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the steps to get better?
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On the sadder side…
The Florida high school shooting with 17 dead just makes me so sick. After reading the statistics of mass shootings in the USA in the New York Times, I cannot believe that there’s a mass shooting every day.
I can’t imagine going to school not knowing if I’ll make it out alive that day. It is ridiculous.
If we really care about safety, then we should care about gun safety. It should not be that easy to buy a gun for anyone. Just like you need a license to practice nursing, you should need a license to purchase a gun. The process of getting that license should require safety training, mental status checks, and the requirement to renew the license.
I mean, just to fish professionally, you need a license. To do someone’s hair or nails, you need a license. To buy a gun and be a safe and responsible user, you need to have a license.
I get that the 2nd amendment gives Americans the right to carry a gun, but we also have the right to be safe in our communities and guns are lethal weapons. Especially AK-15s. Why is that kind of gun sold to lay people? What do the gun shop owners expect lay people to do with those guns?
When people own things, they tend to use those things. Those things include guns. This obsession with “our right to gun ownership” needs to let up. We should focus on improving the safety of our neighborhoods by getting guns to licensed personnel.
A gun is not just an object like a TV, or a fishing pole. It is meant to injure or kill living things, including people. It should be treated as such.
I do not want to become numb to the reality of mass shootings. I want the US to be safer than it is now. I do not want to go to a school, a theater, a nightclub, a concert, and worry if my life will be in danger. It should not be that way. We need this to change.
It may involve the government asking for guns to be returned for compensation, and start to enforce gun safety classes (including accuracy target training), assessing mental health and other harmful associations (for example if they are on the no-fly list, terrorist, etc), and require a license, just like you need to drive a car. And like a driver’s license, you will need to renew it, proving that you’ve received updated information. Just like a driver’s license, there should be a gun registration for the gun owner’s license so it is much easier to keep track of how many guns are being sold.
Just like how cars can kill people, the guns’ intention is to kill. Why is it not regulated more?
It is our “right” to drive and it is our right to own a gun. It is also our right to pursue happiness. We can only do that if we feel safe in our communities. And that includes keeping track of gun owners and the type of guns they own.
We need to change America for the better.
Do you agree, disagree? What do you think can improve the gun safety in America so there isn’t a mass shooting everyday in the USA?