Newtown Shootings

It is the Monday after the shootings and the talk show folks are off and running. Gun control and an increased police state are on the table. Mental health is a sticky ball that no one seems to know how to deal with.

All of this posturing. All of this flapping of gums. The children, school faculty, mother or son cannot be brought back. And they aren't the first, nor will they be the last.

I'm thinking of a Sunday School teacher/mother who told me last year that her budding teenage children were going to the gun range and taking gun lessons. These were suburban kids. What did they need to shoot?

I grew up on a farm and knew how to shoot a gun. But I do not own a gun. I know the violence guns do. Probably about 10 years ago, two cousins were hunting doves on my parent's farm. The one thought birds had been flushed and instead blasted his cousin in the chest. By the time the ambulance got to that part of the farm, the man's peppered chest stopped breathing. He was dead to the horror of the cousin whom he considered his best friend.

Down the road from our farm, I can name several more accidental deaths from guns on other farms. One was when a farmer went over a fence and accidentally set off his gun shooting himself in the face. Another was when a farm hand was hit by a high-powered gun's bullet ricochetting off the barn wall, striking him dead. My own mother narrowly missed being hit by a high-powered riffle's bullet several years ago while putting up clothes on her clothes line behind the house. It drilled into the hillside near her.

Sounds crazy to my neighbors. What? No gun? It takes law enforcement 45 minutes to get here, and even then, it has to be for something urgent. Otherwise, we have had the police call back after 3 hours to see if they were still needed.

Four years ago, our home was broken into. A laptop was taken. But it was clear to the sheriff that what the thieves were looking for were electronics, guns, prescription narcotics, and cash. Only a laptop was taken. No guns, no drugs, no cash... because we didn't have any to steal.

We were advised to get a security system. This is a very expensive proposition and with law enforcement taking forever to get here, not really worth it.

A potentially rabid cat tried to make its final resting place here. But we wound up taking it to the animal shelter, even though a neighbor/Vietnam Vet came over to kill it. He couldn't do it because he knew the cat. Later we learned that running over it is a method suggested by some state health departments. There are other options besides guns.

I'm not saying that there is no roll for guns. But there is no need for high powered, multiple shooting rounds of guns for anyone besides law enforcement. Period. We are just escalating the war on ourselves.

Let's put our faith in something besides weaponry. Let's teach kids relational skills and ways of engaging positively in our communities.