Weaponry, Wednesday.

Weaponry. Wednesday.

 

For the past few weeks there has been a fierce debate raging south of the Canadian border over gun control, and what needs to be done so that a tragedy like the parkland school shooting never happens again. And while most peoples hearts are in the right place, I think people are reacting to this issue FAR too emotionally.

 

Yes, it’s extremely tragic that 17 students lives were cut short because of one psychopath with a gun. But is that the guns fault? No.

 

Guns are tools. They are not living entities and will not do any damage unless the person using them wants to do damage... We have had semi automatic rifles for well over a hundred years now. And that’s what the AR-15 is, a Semi automatic rifle. The AR stands for ArmaLite, not Assault rifle like most people think it does...

 

Although people have had the tools to do school shootings for well over a hundred years now, they are a relatively new phenomenon. So, what’s changed?

 

Well, a lot, actually, over the past hundred years.... Which makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what’s happening now, that make tragedies like this so much more common.

 

Is it the drugs? People are on way more mood altering medications than they’ve ever been on before. And if the doctors are being honest, they don’t really know what the long term effects of these medications are, or what their potential for turning relatively harmless, emotionally damaged people into blood thirsty mass shooters is.

 

Is it the lack of family structure in our modern society? Some people have floated the idea out there that this phenomenon is due to the lack of fathers interest in the lives of their sons, and that these damaged individuals can eventually act out violently. To the detriment of others...

 

Is it the guns? No. People have had access to firearms in America for a LONG time, and despite them having more guns than people in their country, most of the people who own weapons don’t go around shooting people en mass.

 

So, what is the problem? I think it’s a combination of few things, which include the lack of family structure, drugs being over prescribed and handed out like M&M’s. But I think this is caused mostly by people attacking masculinity and making some people feel like outcasts and rejects because of who they are at their very core, Men.

 

There’s a reason this is happening and we need to get to the bottom of it. I don’t really know what the problem is, I can only speculate.

 

But the one thing I know for sure is the guns are not the cause of this problem.....They are simply the tool used by these evil people, and I can back that up.

 

A mass shooting that happened not that long ago in Sutherland Springs, Texas, was more deadly and less reported on than this most recent shooting. Why? Perhaps because a NRA instructor by the name of Stephen Willeford took his AR-15 and stopped the shooter in his tracks.

 

Bringing a whole new meaning to saying “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

 

If he hadn’t had been there, how much worse could the Sutherland Shooting have been? Are we supposed to wait for the police to show up and stop the bad guys all the time? When there response time on AVERAGE for emergency calls is 9 minutes, before they even get to the scene of the crime?

 

Do you really only want the government to be the only ones who are armed? Or do you want people to have a right to bear arms and hope that there’s someone like Stephen Willeford there when you need him?

 

As a Canadian, we don’t even have that option. But if we did, I know I wouldn’t be so willing to give it up like the kids from Parkland seem to be.

 

For me, the answer is simple. The government is no better at defending you than a well meaning man with a gun is, or you yourself. So why would we take away the guns from the Stephen Willeford’s of the world?

 

 

Just a few thoughts and questions I have regarding one if the most hot button issues of the day. Especially here in Canada, where people seem to think that if people don’t have any guns, violent crime just MAGICALLY goes away! No, all you have is a vulnerable population...

 

 

Here’s a few pieces I worked on today. Ones finished, the other one, well.... We’ll see what happens!

 

If you have any comments on this topic, or the artwork, I’d love to hear’ em!

 

Happy Wednesday.

 

Sincerely, Bret Frick.