Come on, Congress

image source: ens

As this week passes I can't help but feel a bit of an Arkham City vibe coming from Boston; our Country in general. Resin letters popping up again, bombings, now two men, a police officer and one of the original bombers (possibly) killed in a gun fight, and the other bomber on the run. What a great time for Congress to decide not to pass the gun control bills. 

While the Boston crisis began with explosions and not direct gun use, it has led to that. Violence breeds violence, so this is not very surprising. While I am a strong believer in honoring our Constitution and believe our Forefathers crafted a masterpiece, I am not so narrow minded to ignore the fact that interpretation and modification is necessary, and should be welcomed. Those before us wrote the constitution, including the 2nd amendment in a time of hostility, in a time when guns took more time to load than shoot. Automatic weapons were not even a part of their wildest dreams. They had no idea what their predecessors would create. And if they had I believe they would have made stronger regulations.

I am not against the right to bear arms. I do believe as citizens we should have the right to protect ourselves, especially in our time, and if your choice of doing so is a concealed weapon, so be it. But should that go as far as thirty machine guns in a household with small children? Should gun laws be so lapse they are sold and traded illegally on a daily basis? No. I don't see how anyone, especially our Congress, sees this as okay.

I can imagine the parents of those Sandy Hook victims, those children, watching as these gun control bills were ignored. Their children were lost, and now have died in vain. The deaths of those twenty innocent children and their six teachers were not enough for Congress to see that it is time to make gun purchasing harder than going to your local Walmart on a Saturday afternoon. It is time to work towards putting an end to these news broadcasts showing another school being shot up. It is time to show our country that the Sandy Hook children mattered, that we saw what happened to them, that we learned our lesson and we will no longer put our children's lives in jeopardy because we care more about our gun collections than their lives. 

I write this piece with a broken heart. My heart is broken for the Sandy Hook Children, for their parents and their families. My heart is broken for Police Officer Sean Collier who died in Cambridge last night. My heart is broken for Richard H. Donohue Jr. who will hopefully recover after also being shot in Boston last night. My heart is broken for our President, a man who was brave enough to take a stand for our country, our children; for me. And mostly, my heart is broken for our Congress. As they sit in their homes, watching this news coverage of Boston, I hope they are regretting their choices. I hope they are realizing their wrongs. And I hope they are remembering Charlotte Bacon (DOB 2/22/06), Daniel Barden (9/25/05), Rachel Davino (7/17/83), Olivia Engel (7/18/06), Josephine Gay (12/11/05), Ana M. Marquez-Greene (4/4/06), Dylan Hockley (3/8/06), Dawn Hocksprung (6/28/65), Madeleine F. Hsu (7/10/06), Catherine V. Hubbard (6/8/06), Chase Kowalski (10/31/05), Jesse Lewis (6/30/06), James Mattioli (3/22/06), Grace McDonnell (11/04/05), AnneMarie Murphy (07/25/60), Emilie Parker (5/12/06), Jack Pinto (5/6/06), Noah Pozner (11/20/06), Caroline Previdi (9/7/06), Jessica Rekos (5/10/06), Avielle Richman (10/17/06), Lauren Russeau (6/1982), Mary Sherlach (2/11/56), Victoria Soto (11/4/85), Benjamin Wheeler (9/12/06), and Allison N. Wyatt (7/3/06).

sources:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/list-conn-school-shooting-victims-names-released-article-1.1221098

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/19/us/boston-area-violence/index.html