Petitions and POV: Mostly Guns and Bullying

I wind up signing  a lot of online petitions; I do not remember when or why I signed the first one, chances are it was a gay rights petition over ten years ago. Once one signs one they send, via email, other petitions that they think one might sign and in quite a few cases the petitions are something of interest. I still sign a lot of LGBT petitions, an occasional unjustly jailed one, lots of anti-GMO food ones, some environmental ones, etc. All of the sudden, in the last few weeks, I have been getting all sorts of gun control/anti-gun petitions sent to me. Man, they are hitting up on the wrong person here. So I think that a gay person has rights, I think that BP should have to clean up the spill, I think that food should be real and honest without genetic manipulation, gobs of pesticides and other poisons, or without unneeded antibiotics and hormones---where does that give the idea I think guns are a bad thing? Venison is healthier and more natural than most beef. And, personally, I do not want to have to devise a way to kill our beef humanely without a gun, bovine heads do not usually succumb to a baseball bat, a shot is quicker and cleaner. Now, let us also consider the occasional sick wild animal that walks into the yard. There have been sick skunks and raccoons that have walked into our yard, or down the road, in the pasture, whatever, critters that have had distemper or quite possibly even rabies. Using a gun to dispatch the poor thing seems a lot safer and more humane than any other option. It puts the critter out of its misery and helps keep the disease from spreading to both wild and domesticated animals.

I am a strong believer in gun control, anyone that owns a gun should be able to control it.

I also believe that if more people were armed then there would be less crime. If someone walks into a convenience store to rob it right now he or she is pretty confident that the only gun will be in his or her possession. If one in five people were armed, that would take away that "confidence" and make the robbery a lot less likely.

If guns are illegal, only the criminals will own them (leaving the rest of the people to their so-called mercy.)

An armed society is a polite society. That is an older saying, it is true to a point, somewhat considering what one thinks of as polite. Some people have equated that politeness to fear of the armed but I do not. A gun, whether a handgun or rifle or shotgun, for that matter, a howitzer or cannon, is a tool. I am no more afraid a "normal" person holding a gun that I am of one holding a hammer--hammers are often used in deadly crimes too, don't forget, but no one is trying to make them illegal. Wouldn't it have been neat if some of the people in the Aurora CO theater shooting would have been armed? Good chance that one of them would have had a clear shot and could have stopped some of the killings? And the Columbine high school shooting--everyone seems to forget they had been working on bombs in the garage before they got guns; they had taken their bombs to the school but the bombs failed. If they had not gotten the guns they probably would have perfected the bombs and a lot more people would be dead. And what if there had been armed teachers there?  I am for arming teachers if they are willing; I won't force a gun on anyone that doesn't feel comfortable. I am one of those people that are not particularly comfortable with firearms. I do know gun safety. I do know how to use them and am not the worst shot even though I never practice. I just am not comfortable using them and let others that are comfortable take care of issues when needed if someone like that is around when the need arises. I still am thankful there are guns around, all around, my neighborhood.

In actuality, I really dislike guns; they are loud, they smell bad, can be dangerous, and I am sure with a few moments I can come up with other things I don't like about them but it doesn't matter. They were invented long ago and have numerous uses and are not intrinsically bad. I can change the word guns to cars in that first sentence and it would still be pretty much true. But cars are newer and while transportation might not be a bad thing, I think they need a lot more work than guns do.

I also think that stopping bullying in schools would go a lot further toward ending school shootings and other violence than making guns illegal.

School bullying is one of the biggest ignored crimes in this country. I went to a lot of different schools growing up. I was often a victim, at first, I would fight back and it would stop, until I went to a new school and then I had another fight or two…  I was very often a witness of bullying; it saddens me. Sometimes, I stopped someone from bullying of others; I really regret not doing more of that. I really should have interfered more. Part of me was just happy it wasn't me, part of me was tired of fighting, it hurts even when one wins and causes problems with the school faculty. But some was that I thought maybe they would learn to fight back like I did. What I know now is that if the ability to fight back physically and or psychologically is there it generally manifests early, as mine did. Some poor folks just have to take it if they have no champion, as I should have been. Then there are the others that snap, maybe it is that they learn to fight back too late to know how to do it right and take a whole lot of people with them that might or might not have deserved it.

Yeah, I do believe bullying is the cause; it fits every one of them. And I understand the fantasy of taking out your bully and the other peoples bullies and the ones that let the bullying happen, even egged it on in some cases. Yes, I have seen teachers do that, egg it on. I never had a teacher encourage my bullying right in front of me but I have had the next best thing. Seventh grade math class. An important and timed test. The guy behind me started kicking my chair. I asked him to stop. It got worse. I told him to stop. It got worse. My chair was being kicked hard enough to move it inches at a time. I kept telling him to stop it. I had my hand raised, and was practically waving it like I saw a ship from a deserted island, trying to get the teacher to pay attention which he was blatantly not doing. My chair was now moving around quite a bit as the guy now had his foot hooked into my chair and was giving my a ride back and forth, to and fro. I finally stood up and yelled at the kid to STOP KICKING AND DRAGGING MY CHAIR AROUND since the teacher was purposely ignoring the situation. Do you know what happened then? The teacher finally decided his attention was needed. He yelled at me to stop disrupting the class, then he said (not yelled) the talking was bad enough but me standing up and yelling was the last straw and I had to take the rest of my test in the hallway. Unfortunately, at that age I was way too embarrassed to take advantage of the nice quiet school hallway to finish my test with a decent state of mind. The fact is I felt, and had been, betrayed by my teacher. And he had, up until that time, been one of the few teacher I had had that I thought was really good and worthy of true respect not just that "polite respect" we  all use to get along. I sat in that hallway seething with anger, burning with embarrassment, shattered by betrayal, and very alone. I had already seen teachers, and other faculty, lying to my parents about things I had been reprimanded for and it probably happened more often than I saw. A short digression here:

Second grade, teacher mispronounced my name and I politely corrected her. She didn't believe me, even told me that there was no such name. When I told her that it was the right way to say it she called me a liar, told me that was the end of it right now I had to miss recess and she called my mom with the charge of me lying. I guess that right at the beginning of the call my mom corrected her on how to pronounce my name and my charge of  lying turned into a charge of talking back to the teacher without my mom ever finding out the whole story. (We talked about that incident many, many years later.)

So back to seventh grade…This really wasn't a good year for me in general. Honestly, I am not sure seventh grade is a good year for 99% of the people in the US but it was a very bad year for me and I was at that point very close to doing something drastic. I do not know why I did not. Maybe it was just the small thing that I knew how to get back at the guy that was messing with my chair--and I did but I won't tell anyone how, and if he is dead it isn't my doing. But I still felt total impotence because of the teacher and I never trusted another one again (until I started back in college in my 30's).

I started doing drugs in eighth grade. It was kind of funny because I was such a nerd in seventh grade and this was one of the few times I switched grades without moving. Even though it was a different school it was the same people. I enjoyed the smoking of pot and it was hard for quite a few of the "burnouts" to accept at first. I was still going to school but hanging in the alley during breaks. Soon all the burnouts were getting me to help them with homework (I would not do someone's homework but would help them understand it). Eighth grade was also the first time since kindergarten I can not recall getting into a fight with a bully--I was not picked on and I had friends even if they were usually stoned. I did not give my teachers crap unless they gave it to me. I only really had trouble with the vice principal of that school and my constant detentions were one of the things that got me in tight with many people. What a legacy, huh?

About a month or so into my freshman year in high school my algebra teacher was explaining something and the people behind me were talking to loud  for me to hear him. I asked him to repeat it. He said, "Repeat it? What? Are you stupid?" That was my last straw for public school. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was not stupid, he was for not realizing what was happening in his classroom, I couldn't hear him but now realize that he was not worth listening to, that teachers shouldn't call their students stupid even if they are. He told me to go to the office, he wouldn't even let me collect the books from my desk which were for not only that class but two others.  I understood the first part but not leaving the books part. It bit me in the butt for not taking them anyway. By the time I had gotten to the office the bell had rung and classes switched. I had to talk to a councilor and there went most f the next class. When that class ended I was supposed to collect my books and go to the  next class. My books were no longer in the desk. The teacher claimed to have no idea as to their whereabouts. So, I got in trouble for losing my books. I was not allowed back into that algebra class and was going to fail it--the first class I  would have ever failed even with all the other trouble I had had dealing with school I still never failed. I gave up on school the very next day after being berated by one of the teachers for still not having my book. I kind of gave up on mainstream society because it supported such an institution.

Actually, there was one more shot at public school in a different town. I was  betrayed by the school again. Big surprise. But even my sister and brother-in-law thought the school was screwed up. Too bad it was really too late for me.

I never stopped learning, even was introduced too a school that worked well. But it was unaccredited and even if the school hadn't closed with me one or two credits shy of graduation, the diploma was worth nothing. Oddly, with two days cramming after years of not being in school, I got a way better score on my GED than the average high school graduate.

I could have gone the other way, and guns were very easy to get when I was a kid in school, but I had a defense from the bullying both mental and physical (that I had the ability to fight back with fists and self-worth mentality and that smoking pot got me friends that would actually stand up for me). Bullying is much more the cause of violence than guns are, those poor people are at their wits end with no defense, and no champions. Some teachers are as much to blame.

Gosh, I do go on once I start.