Fifteen Minutes of Fame

The world is full of mentally ill people just waiting for their 15 minutes of fame. Watching the news once again proves that. Those poor people in Roseburg, Oregon who were gunned down by a crazed killer is just one more example. What the shooter’s name was doesn’t matter. The victims and their families are what matters. One can only imagine what they are going through right now. If you believe in prayer, pray for those families and for the family of the gunman.

Of course, every time something like this happens, gun control inevitably comes up.I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. We do have the right to bear arms for our own protection. We don’t, however, have the right to kill innocent people. We may never know why the man decided to open fire on people he probably never knew.  One of the reporters said he was allegedly asking people what religion they were before shooting them. If that was true, what difference does it make what religion anyone chooses to follow? Everyone thinks their religion is right but no one really knows. Most of us follow the religion our parents followed and their parents before them, and so on and so forth. Does it really matter what the sign says over the door? Shouldn’t it make more sense to realize we don’t need to agree and be able to live peacefully together and worship however we see fit?

Obviously, something needs to be done, but taking away the rights of everyone for the few who abuse those rights will never work and, indeed, has never worked. If you look back in history, prohibition stopped no one from drinking. They still made liquor, sold liquor and held parties serving liquor. Even today, the drug trade is doing a thriving business despite drugs being illegal. So, if guns were to be deemed illegal, people wanting guns would still get them, particularly those who shouldn’t have them. I don’t pretend to know what would solve the current string of gun-related killings, but I know one thing; work out your own salvation with fear and trembling and leave everyone else alone.  Albert Einstein said, “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Those words were true then and they are true now.