Strong Opinions

A Child's Right to Safety

“Too often we...enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

                                          John F. Kennedy

There was another school-shooting yesterday. I don't know about you, but I am a person of strong opinions. Just ask me how I feel about something and I'll tell you in no uncertain terms. As I've aged, I've become less clear about right and wrong and live mostly in the gray areas, but still, I tend not to be wishy-washy about controversial issues. Take the issue of gun control, for example. I understand about second amendment rights, but for me it's a no-brainer that we don't need folks running around the country with assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with thirty round clips. I don't care what Wayne LaPierre says about it; he's paid to have his opinion, and he's protecting, not your constitutional rights, but his own pocket book.

It's all well and good to be a gun-rights advocate as long as it's not your child who's gunned down at school, or in a movie theater or a shopping mall. But I think one's stance would change dramatically if this issue touched one's life 'up-close and personal'. Take Birmingham's Mayor, for instance. Recently he was motoring home from a charitable event and stopped for a traffic light. Across the intersection from his vehicle was an SUV with a gunman, all in black, hanging out the window, gun pointed at the Mayor's car. Shots were fired. The mayor's protective detail returned fire and sped away, only to be followed onto an Interstate ramp by the gunman's vehicle. They drove for a couple of miles, firing at one another until the gunman's car crashed into a guardrail. Turns out, the Mayor was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! The firepower wasn't even aimed at him, but at someone in a car next to him that, presumably, got away. I'll bet the Mayor's stance on gun-control is different today than it was a couple of weeks ago.

Think about that one little scenario for a moment. What if the Mayor had been killed in that incident. What if innocent by-standers had been shot in the hail of bullets going back and forth? For that short time, Birmingham's streets were a war zone. Is that how we want our cities and highways to be? Are we really willing to live in a time when everyone around us is armed with semi-automatic weapons just so that we can feel justified in holding our strong opinions about our rights? Are we willing to endure a school shooting a month to preserve 'rights' that the founding fathers never imagined in their wildest dreams?

We need to shelve our opinions for a while and really think this thing through. Our 'rights' end where the safety of our children begins.

                                            In the spirit,

                                               Jane