Still as pro-common-sense-gun-laws as before.

Gun control is not a black/white, either/or proposition.

That's a scare tactic (unfortunately that works very well).

If someone wants to imagine what would happen if a professor or another student was packing a fire arm to class, also imagine what would happen if it had been harder for the disturbed young man to have gotten a gun in the first place or if he had to wait longer.

I wish I had a penny for every "what-if".

I have dreaded this reaction almost as much as the non-stop media hype and politician posturing that follows this sort of thing that makes a reasonable assessement and fixing of problems impossible.

I felt the same way after 9-11. I feared that we Americans would turn on ourselves and abandon patience and reasoned action and my fears were realized.

I want everyone to engage in a little exercise during tomorrow's commute to and from work.

At each traffic light, imagine the people in the cars next to you or sitting on the bus with you carrying a gun.

Which one of you employees/coworkers do you NOT want to be having a gun on their person?

Are you comfortable with that thought?

And before you think "as long as I have my gun, bring 'em on!!" , look around you at how many people are really around you, out of your line of sight for any given second.

How many other people around you are intended targets in which you are just in the way?

How many of them are around your children, or spouse when you and your trusty side arm are not there to protect them.

Do you really want every person in resturant armed including the obnoxious jerk screaming at waitress at the table across the way?

When you were in school, how many of your teachers would you trust carrying a gun to class (honestly).

For those reading and posting in these forums that have actually been shot, how many saw it coming?

I don't want guns outlawed.

I do want some restrictions on what kind of fire arms are available to the general public and some restrictions on who can purchase a fire arm and where it can be carried. (Do you really want the alcoholic down the street or next door to have a stock pile of fully automatic weapons in his house when he loses his job?)

I want these restrictions to be based on careful, reasoned thought, not bumper sticker slogans ("from my cold dead fingers...").

We left that part of the American Old West behind for a reason.

I understand the anger and fear behind the arguement.

I feel it too.

Especially when I look at my daughter dancing in the living room behind me while watching "Dancing with the Stars".

It sits in my stomach like a sickening rock and it will be there for some time to come. It's why I didn't sleep last night, won't sleep much tonight, and am tearing up as I write this.

But we don't solve this (safety of those we love) or any other problems by abandoning our reason and act out of fear and anger.


Sorry for the rant gang, but too many people have been killed because of those that feed and manipulate the fears and anger of others (historically and recently).