In my opinion the only reason God should be mentioned in this discussion is in mentioning the overall moral decay and move toward secularism in the country today. There are good and evil forces in the world. I don't see how a rational person can deny that. I don't see how a rational person could see some of the world that I have been able to be fortunate enough to see or know the complexity of any living thing, any eco system and think there was no intelligent design involved. There has been evil and evil people since there was a being on the earth. No amount of religion is going to take that away. If the person who did this had been raised in a Christian home, with 3 generations of devout people behind him, it would not have prevented this. It's a non issue as it pertains to this case. The Christian people who subscribe to the theory that if we just put prayer back in the schools, if people would just turn to God, all this stuff would go away, you're just hurting the cause you stand for. You give morons like the resident bong toker here an opportunity to say how stupid you are and make fun of you as some religious loon. And what he says is true in denying that the lack of religious belief is what is involved here. It may have been that this kid was so screwed up he never had the capability to believe, to have faith make any difference in his life. He may have simply been a tragedy. I applaud you for being willing to make your statements of faith. But the way to get more people to be on your side is to use more rational logic when applying your faith to the tragedies of the world, not just blame the lack of prayer in schools as the reason for the moral decay. It is more of a symptom than a cause.
In our county we have had an armed policeman on each of our high schools. He is on sight at all school events as well and at football games there are several. Everyone here is good with that and I am sure there will be a push of some kind to expand that program to middle and elementary schools. In MY OPINION this is one of the few things that could be done to have lessened the impact of this particular tragedy.
As to the guns, I USED to believe much as Robert above that there is no reason for having large magazine semi automatic rifles. In our state there is a limit to the number of rounds you can have in the gun when hunting any species.
HOWEVER, recently I have changed my belief on this. The second amendment was written not so that people could defend themselves from other citizens or to hunt. It was written to be able to defend the citizen from its government. My good friend Robert, whom I admire and think the world of, thinks the argument about having to be as well armed as the government is an outdated one. Having an AR-15 "assault rifle" certainly doesn't arm you as well as a US soldier. But it definitely offers a deterrent to a government agent coming into your home. And if the government were to war against its citizens it would have to come to their homes. Not on some battlefield where the enemy is beyond visual range. I would assert that the Syrian government is, for instance, are far more superior in their arms than it's people. However since the people were able to acquire arms, they are winning their fight against their government.
Many more than half of the people who are surveyed say over and over that they are not satisfied with the direction the country is headed in. But obviously they don't vote. They believe that things will be the way they always have been. Yet there are more people that vote who are in favor of the socialization of this country than there are that are not. And even though the vast majority of those people are concentrated in small geographical areas, there are more of them that vote. People who are so wrapped up in their daily lives probably don't even know anyone who believes the country should be socialist because none of those in their small little world do. So to them it's not real. There is no real threat from the government. Many, like Robert, don't believe there will ever be anything to fear from the United States government.
The North American continent is what made England such a world power in the 1700's. The British Navy was far superior and larger than any and allowed England to project its power throughout the world. All of those British ships after the late 17th Century were being made of North America white pine. Not many trees left in Britain by that time. A British war ship of the day cost similar to that of today's aircraft carrier. Many country's simply did not have the funding to raise such a Navy. America offered Britain unending free lumber to build ships at a fraction of what it cost other country's. SO 1722 the Crown decreed any White Pine tree 12" or larger was it's own and could be cut only under the direction of the Surveyor of the King's Woods. No matter who owned the land the tree was on, or what the purpose was, it couldn't be cut, it belonged to the government. The effect of this was not only an in convenience to colonists but an impediment to sound construction. This law caused more backlash than the tea tax or the Stamp Act. The backlash was such that if you built a cabin with less than 12" boards you were now looked down upon by your fellow colonists.
In April of 1772, 6 Saw mills in New Hampshire were found to have logs on their property over 12" in Diameter. The owners were fined large sums of money and all but one paid the fine. Saw mill owner Ebenezer Mudgett refused to pay. The county sheriff and his deputy were sent to arrest Mudgett. He was arrested and released after promising to pay bail in the morning. At dawn 20 or 30 men led by Mudgett, faces blackened with soot entered the inn where the sheriff and his deputy were. They beat them with tree branches, one lick for each tree they were being fined for and rode the men out of town through a gauntlet of townspeople trying to drag them from their horses. This test of government authority was the inspiration for the Boston Tea Party and eventually the American Revolution. The Pine Tree Flag carried by ships under the direction of George Washington of the Continental Army was inspired by this event.
Now the government isn't going to come to your house today and claim your pine trees. But the post "Bovine Chaos" made previously about what governments have inflicted on unarmed people is fact. The next argument is that nothing like that could ever happen here. This is the United States of America! There were times when I believed that as well. I know lots of people who go to work, farm, raise their kids, come home, go to a basketball game, go to church, go to bed and that's their world. And if it ain't happenin' in their world, then it ain't happenin'. They have total faith in the foundation of our country. They believe that we have always been free, that if you work hard and keep trying you can accomplish anything you want. It's the American way. It always has been, always will be. It's like Robert saying the argument is silly that we do not need to protect ourselves against our own government. Yet the government has already decided to tax me in order to pay for my neighbors health insurance. They re-distribute wealth by taxing me and giving that money to someone else who pays no taxes. Maybe even someone in Pakistan for crying out loud. They have already decided that if you are even a medium size farmer/landowner, when you die the government is going to seize up to 55% of your assets that you left to your children. You don't believe anything else will come along the government will take? What will be the next "pine tree?"
It may not come in our lifetime, but if things continue on the same path they are on now, there will be another armed conflict against government authority in this country. That is unless we allow them to regulate guns even further in which case the same thing will happen that happened in Russia, Germany, Turkey, Uganda...............
