Rant #1,225: Smoking Gun

I do not understand the fascination that many people in this country have with guns.

Why normal citizens feel the need to carry weapons is beyond me.

Why anybody thinks they need to carry a gun to protect themselves is something I do not understand.

By carrying a gun, I believe you are putting yourself in harm's way without even realizing it, creating a situation which generally does not exist.

And what are you going to do with a gun, anyway? Shoot somebody, which generally isn't a very good thing to do.

The last few days, with gun violence in schools and our streets being highlighted, I think that once and for all, something must be done about the gun problem in this country.

It seems like since Columbine, a day doesn't go by that we don't hear about another violent act in our schools revolving around guns.

And the scary thing is that the guns involved in these incidents are generally legal, being procured through the normal means. They are not guns from the streets.

I am no fan of our President, but on this issue, I agree with him 100 percent: these incidents, especially in our schools, are unnerving, as both a citizen of this country and a parent of two children. The logjams he has faced in even getting the most basic gun laws put in place in this country is a heinous blotch on Congress, and it will be their unfortunate legacy if nothing gets done during their tenure.

Look, we are not talking about illegally obtained guns here. If someone wants to get a gun, they will get a gun. Sure, there are laws in this country against getting these types of guns, and those laws work and don't work, and that is another story for another time.

What I am talking about here are legal firearms, those obtained from gun stores, at gun shows, those where the owner has to have a permit to own such weapons.

There has to be laws put into place to make it even more difficult for people who want to own guns legally to get them. Maybe we are talking about longer waiting periods, maybe even psychological evaluations of those who want to own such weapons.

But clearly, something needs to be done, because the weapons being used in these incidents, as I said, are generally ones that have been purchased legally.

Sure, those who feel that there are enough rules and regulations on the ownership of guns claim that it is our right as citizens of the United States to own firearms. I don't disagree, but I feel that it is time that we looked at the reasons why people own guns today.

This is not 1776. It is 2014, and do we really need guns to protect ourselves?

Just last week, there was an incident involving my son's school, where two prior graduates were arrested for talking about participating in a Columbine-like "event" at the high school. They were apprehended because a parent alerted the school's principal that these two clowns, one girl and one boy, were talking up such stuff on Facebook.

These two fools then said they were just joking, that they had no plans to either shoot up or blow up the school.

Very funny, and the authorities will deal with them later.

Anyway, with the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" part of our current lexicon, rather than look out of the country for such things, we only have to look right here in our country for them.

They are guns, and clearly, something must be done to stop them from being used to kill innocent people.

The problem has reached epidemic proportions, and there seems to be no turning back.

We must do something, and something soon.

This is not a cartoon.

When are people going to understand that guns kill?