Well, DUH!

Okay, for the record, I think Wisconsin's new conceal/carry law is ridiculous. I look around my home and know there is nothing I have worth taking another life for. Not that I welcome thieves and robbers, mind you. I just wouldn't shoot one over my DVD player. Not worth it.

The debate over this law has reached farcical proportions though. I love the "gun don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Yes, they are right - people with guns kill people. Then they argue, "Well, the bad guys are going to have them whether it's legal or not." Again, can't argue with that logic. It's true, they would. So, by all means, let's make it far easier for the bad guys to not only buy them legally but carry them around with them in public. For that matter, the good guys could always have them too. Just not on the bus. With your kids.

My husband, as you know, is from another country. When we first met he told me that the overall view of the US is that of a people very driven by religious righteousness and bearing arms. I initially argued against that because those close to me do not fit that pattern. I've since begun to see his point. We are nothing if not a country of polarized identity. We like to talk about our freedom to speak but get really angry if someone's saying something we don't like. There ought to be laws about that! We like to flaunt our "individuality" but get really pissed off if someone is not within the accepted norms. We march for marriage equality but allow our kids and those two fisted beer drinking good ol' boys to use the word "faggot" at will. And then we let them use the Bible to support their cause. We tell our girls to be careful and not get assaulted but we don't tell our boys that no means no. We pour money into televangelists pockets but we don't give the homeless woman on the street a quarter because she should "get a job". We cry when we hear that a man took the life of his two sons and himself but look the other way when we see abuse at the store, in the street, next door.

We demand our freedom! And we carry guns. So if our freedom is threatened we can shoot whomever is threatening it. Technology, if used wrong, takes us farther and farther away from each other when, in fact, it has the power to bring us all closer. Maybe that closeness scares us. So we carry guns.

We don't even realize how incredibly stupid we look to the rest of the world.

I know someone who went right out and got a gun, took the classes and now has a permit to carry a gun. This person cannot decide what to have for lunch on a good day. She often leaves the house and forgets where it was she was going. Now, she has the power to decide, at a moment's notice, whether or not to shoot another human being. That stuff scares the crap outta me!

People kill people, it's true. People with guns. People who have no reason in the world to ever carry a fire arm. I mean, really, it's a no brainer. Who in their right mind would want to live with the knowledge that they took another human life to save their television, or Playstation? Well, DUH!