So as most of you know by now there was a shooting in aurora colorado. A lone gun man went into the midnight premier of TDKR and shot around fifty people killing around twelve. This was a terrible tragedy and my heart and thoughts are with the victims and their families. I wanted to write a blog about this because of two reasons; first, the frailty of human life, and second, how we can possibly prevent other tragedies like it. To my first point, nobody in the premier nor the families of the people in that premier expected any thing like this to happen. When we as a society go out to a move, or dinner, or the park, or the beach, we expect to be relatively safe, we expect to enjoy our activity. Its because of that expectation that a lot of people don't think twice before going out into the world, we walk out our front door into a world of uncertainties most of the time without telling those closest to us how much we care about them. I am not trying to scare people from going out side or enjoying life, if that is the result than every gunman every violent criminal has won. I am telling you to be more active in the lives of the people you love. Tell them you love them whenever you get a chance, you may not get another one. Now to my next point. Lets look at a few very scary things coming out of this story. One the gun man in question had in his possession two pistols a shotgun and an AR15! Two, due to the low level of regulation he also got a hold of 3000 rounds of hand gun ammunition, 3000 rounds of assault rifle amo and around 300 shotgun shells. Three, he also acquired tactical gear and a bullet proof vest all on the internet, and all without raising any red flags. This man was essentially ready to go to war and nobody thought to question it. lets look at this piece by piece. The AR15 is an assault rifle, it was illegal for ten years and then in 2004 it was made legal. What do civilians need an assault rifle for? Nothing, we don't need them arguments can be made for pistols and hunting rifles, but an assault rifle? Now about the large amounts of ammunition and military equipment this man bought off the internet. We are not dumb we all know that the government scans the internet for suspicious activity all the time. thats how they catch people running pirating websites and how they shut down an individuals internet connection if they are downloading illegal content. However the largely lax regulation on ammunition made it possible for this man to buy huge amounts of it with out so much as raising an eyebrow. WHAT!? I believe that gun laws should be stricter, I also believe that obtaining ammunition should be much harder. A lot of people will and have disagreed with my possession, saying that one bad apple should not ruin it for everybody, and I am inclined to side with that theory for most things. However this is not an isolated incident things like this happen all too often add that to the almost 100,000 people that die a year due to domestic gun violence, and thats a lot more than just your one bad apple. Now people are going to argue that guns don't kill people, other people do, but studies have proven that guns only escalate already tense situations. Bottom line here is that in my opinion gun and ammunition laws are way to lax, there should be much more intense screening, and I think being able to hold a license to carry a gun on you at all times is just ridiculous. Guns are useful tools in certain situations, hunting, and protecting your home, but there is no place for them in a store or in a restaurant. Yes there are stories about people saving the day because they had their gun on them like the story out of florida, two guys one of whom had a pistol break into a cafe to rob it, then a 71 year old man pulls his concealed weapon out and fires chasing the two robbers out of the cafe injures them and they go to jail he won't face chargers and he saved all of the people in that cafe. This is a great story and it makes me feel good that people will stand up against violent criminals. However there aren't enough stories like this to combat all of the people that have been affected by gun violence. Again these are my opinions I'm sure you have your own. Let me know what you think about gun laws or anything I've discussed here.
Love the people you love, today.
James C. Romo
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