“US against THEM” (a Recipe for Destruction)

I saw a picture this morning of a guy with an assault rifle strapped to his back while he was shopping at a local grocery store. It made me think, just how afraid of your surroundings do you have to be to feel you need to carry such a weapon in public. We aren’t in Syria or Iraq the odds of this guy being engaged by a terrorist is slim to none. There is however a possibility of being assaulted. But think about it. If someone was going to assault this guy, they would focus on getting close enough for the attack. Our hero wouldn’t have time to take his rifle off his back, take off the safety (taking for granted he even had it on safety) and shoot it.

Though I don’t carry a gun myself, I support the right of someone to do so if they felt the need. I also support a person’s right to own whatever weapon he or she sees fit. But maybe everyone would be safer and more of a threat to criminals if he had a hand gun concealed strategically on his person. It could be easily retrieved and utilized possibly saving the day for himself and his fellow shoppers. At the same time letting the people who are wondering if this guy was a threat to relax.

But instead we have pro an anti-gun activists battling over if the average citizens should have any guns at all. It takes just a look around to realize there are threats among us. We live in a violent society and because of that it would be irresponsible to not have a plan for that contingency. But a little common sense would be a great thing.

The problem is that in this country, there is always the mentality of “I want my rights! Even if it curtails someone else’s rights.  Any problem in society can be resolved with compromise, but that would require of course that all parties be rational enough to listen to the each other and come to an agreement based on tending to each other’s fears and needs. For example maybe required training for a person to be licensed to own a gun. The criteria being they have to take a course on gun safety and a check to see if there is a history of mental illness. They would be licensed to have guns but not be required to register each gun which addresses the fear of 2^nd amendment activist that the government will confiscate their guns at some point.

We live in a “type “of democratic society the idea being that we hire people to decide who is going to get what they want and who isn’t. This of course leaves us with up to 50 percent of the population not getting what they want or need. I read one of the 2016 presidential hopefuls saying addressing the needs of the collective is more important than addressing the needs of the individual. Isn’t it just common sense that if you preserved the right of all individuals it would ultimately save the rights of more of the collective?

There was the debate recently of “Hobby Lobby” company refusing to provide birth control for women. All though I don’t agree with their reasoning it is in my opinion their right to make that stand. They should be required to inform all new hires and employees of that fact giving the employees the information they need to exercise their rights as to whether they want to work there or not. A compromise could be that they provide insurance as they normally would and the employee have the opportunity to add the birth control availability to their policy at their own cost. That way the employee can get what they need and the company doesn’t have to go against their religious beliefs.

We are all human beings. No one really has a right to decide what another is to believe or desire. If we honor EVERYONE’S rights there is a good chance we would be on our way to some level of peace.