Guns and Violence

Today is the day after the shooting at NIU. Within the last 2 weeks or so, this country has seen numerous shootings, mostly at schools. This to me bears the question, when are we going to get a clue and ban guns? I just don't understand how people can continue to support the right to use an instrument of death. Someone once made the argument to me that banning guns is like banning cars because of drunk drivers. My rebuttal to that was a car's primary purpose is to transport. Do people do dumb things which cause it to become a vector of death? Yes but its purpose is to kill or maim. Same thing with knives. Their primary purpose is to cut and slice things, mainly food items but still some people use them for harm. However, in the case of guns, their only primary purpose is death and or harm. Guns are not bought for charm, for art, or to open a coconut. They are bought to shoot things with the hopes of killing or maiming. It's quite simple.

So my opinion is to ban guns for the most part. My comprise for all you gun toting rednecks who thrive on violence and live believing an 18th century amendment still applies to 21st century America is as follows...

• The only gun a person can own would be a hand gun, and just one for that matter. Also, you would only be allowed to own a gun after several provisions are met. 1) You must take classes totaling over 100 hours of gun safety. 2) You would have to apply and purchase a gun license, which would be issued after you pass a test regarding gun safety. 3) You would have to pay high taxes on the purchase of your gun. And finally, 4) you would have to renew your gun license annually. Furthermore, this hand gun is only for home protection. You CAN NOT take it out of your house. It must be registered and required to stay home. If you are found with it anywhere; car, on you, in a purse, you will go to jail. Plain and simple.
• It would be illegal for you to own anything other than a hand gun. No one would be allowed to own a shotgun, semi-automatic, fully-automatic, partially-automatic, or anything else; period.
• If you are a hunter... (Personally I despise your kind. There is no reason to hunt. It is barbaric and only serves to sooth the ego of a species that believes it is somehow superior to the world when we really are its worst enemy. For those that argue "but, we have to thin the herds or they will over populate etc."; my rebuttal is this, who is thinning our herd? Why do we as humans believe we are so high and mighty? Our population growth is out of control. We are WAY overpopulated. We are the ones who have spilled over into natural land, their land. We are the ones who have created the problems in the world. When is our herd of stupidity and self-righteousness going to be thinned?)...then you rent your hunting rifle or whatever daily from a wildlife office at the entrance of a hunting area. Plus, you can only rent a gun if you have a license to rent one. And (you guessed it) you can only obtain a license by attending 100 hours of hunting and gun safety and take a test to obtain that hunting license. (And no, the 2 licenses are NOT the same. Different classes, different tests and different payments for each)
• Regarding both licenses; you would have to be of a certain age, probably 21 or 25 in order to even apply for it.

In my opinion, if you take away guns, you won't 100% fully solve the problem of school related violence today, but you will significantly curb it. Guns do kill people. A monkey with a gun can kill people. A baby with a gun can kill people. A string attached to a trigger can kill people. What is the common theme here? When you involve a gun, the chances of death or severe injury rises astronomically. I maintain that if it is harder to obtain these items, then the likely hood of some kid picking up a gun from the store or family member and coming to school and opening up on as many people as possible become diminished.

I wonder how many people, how many schools, how many innocent people have to die or be shot before we wake up and realize that guns are too easy to buy, too easy to obtain, and too easy to kill with? Is it going to have to take the death of loved ones of these gun-loving idiots to realize the problem? Does the board of the NRA need to be gunned down before people wake up? I am in no way threatening anybody but merely asking what is it going to take for people to give up their affection towards guns? The 2nd amendment is old and needs to be changed.

If you are for the 2nd amendment let me ask you one last question for you to think about...Which is more important to you; your right to live, or your right to kill?

Post?

Am I really posting to this blog again? Yep. I will however change how I use this blog slightly. I still plan to rant and rave and further define myself as a curmugon. However, I will attempt to post much more frequently and about all sorts of issues. I will try not to hide behind my thoughts and feelings as much as I have in the past. This blog may offend you. It may inspire you. It may put you to sleep. Whatever it does to you, I will use it purely as it's initial intention, as my catharsis.

-z

Wow

Well, again I haven't posted in a long, LONG time. I guess this blogging thing is all that it is cracked up to be. Thus far, I don't really have anything exciting to talk, complain, or whine about. My life is quite pitiful and sad. I still get quite annoyed with stupid, everyday people doing stupid, everyday things. Ohhhh.....

I do have something to complain about. Today is voting day. I used to be real big on voting and doing your part to better society, the government, blind children, etc. I have since grown to realize that the problem with voting is that people are voting. Per the last couple of years, I have discovered that most people aren't worth the air they breathe. Thus, no matter if I vote or who I vote for, the masses will still elect some ignorant retard because they want somebody like themselves. Therefore, I have decided to quite voting until further notice. Not because I don't believe in the voting process or power to the people. It's that I don't trust or believe in the people. There are plenty of candidates and issues that I feel very passionate about, but knowing that the majority of people out there have their heads so far up their ass, they can hear an echo, why bother fighting it with more ignorance? The problem today is that everything that is supposed to be right with the world and society, is completely wrong. Voting is supposed to be a worth-while activity to better your fellow man and progress society in a good way. Now, I find sitting on the toilet more during the course of a day gives me much better satisfaction and progresses society at an equal rate the people do.

Pisstons

Well, you probably know that my beloved Cavs lost to Detroit. First point I want to make is that, I would have loved for the Cavs to advance, however it isn't there time yet. There is NOBODY there to help LeBron and until there is, this is about how far we'll go. Now, onto my rant...

The Detroit Pisston's.
1st) I hate the team, the players, the fans, everything. I have never seen more useless carbon life-forms in my life than when the tv panned the bench for Detroit. (well, except for the Bush family)
2nd) The Wallace boys. Rasheed, do us all a favor and go away, forever. You are not cool, you are not important, you look like a criminal and act like one to. Where do you get off thinking it's okay to just run your mouth whenever you feel like it? You are nothing special, and never will be. Your time on earth would be better served as shark food. Ben, you are a great defensive player but your offense is horrendous, as is your face after every play. No, you aren't fouled just because you didn't get your way. You aren't always innocent.
3) Taysheen Prince. Didn't you star in that alien movie with Charlie Sheen? I think it was call "The Arrival".
4) Chauncey Billups. You are a pompass, arrogant prick. Take your "I'm the only important person on earth" attitude and shove it straight up your ass. Yes you guys are a good team. But you are by no means anywhere near the greats of all time, and you as a person aren't even on the charts. Quit thinking you are something special. For as good as you think you are, you almost lost the series to the Cavs! We have Lebron James and....nobody else! We were lucky to get past the first round. So don't give me that crap that you weren't worried. If you weren't, you damn well should have been and I only hope Miami whips your ass so hard, you can't sit for a year.
5) The rest of the team (except Flip Saunders)...I hate you. Pisston off.
6) The fans. I think before you all should be allowed to enjoy this team and this sport. Try and remember the debacle of last year with the brawl. You as well, are nothing special.

I have nothing further at this time.

Go Cavs!

I am a witness. Are you?

Housework

Okay, let me start off by saying, I have absolutely NO skills in fixing just about anything. If a piece of paper tears, what do I do? Staple, tape, caulk, putty, burn? I dunno. Anyway, so I am trying to update my 80's looking house by changing out the light fixtures. In my bathroom, there was one of those old "light-box" deals. You know, the light-coffin looking thing. Anyway, after ripping it out of the wall (which was quite enjoyable) I noticed there was no light box to mount the new light fixture to. Just a hole in the wall with some wires sticking out. (BTW, don't lick the ends of those wires, trust me.) So, after spending hours upon hours in home depot, I found this little doohicky (yes, that is the actually on the box) that you stick into the hole and it expands into the studs. Oh, I forgot to mention, that the only studs I could see was the one in the mirror...bazzing!

Anyway, so after getting this electrical-box-stud-mounter-hanger in place, I patched the hole I had made with a patching kit and spackle. Sanded, painted and was ready to hand the light fixture. Then I noticed, the screws that came with the light fixture don't fit into the hole of the electric box. I also happen to notice that the light fixture came with dry-wall mounts, which look like really hard earplugs. Needless to say, I had to cut open the wall again, remove the stud-mounter thing, and then re-patch the wall. Only this time, I couldn't actually use a patch kit because the hole I had just created was big enough for interstellar transportation. So, off to Home Depot again to buy drywall.

After buying a piece of drywall, cutting it to size, spackling it place and sacrificing a small child in the name of Plast (the ancient Indian god of drywall) I was able to finally mount the light fixture.

The moral of the story is, if you have to do work on your home, don't. It's not worth it.
Cost of light fixture = $50
Cost of 1st set of materials = $100
Cost of 2nd set of materials = $30
Cost of labor = 5-7 years off my life plus $20 for counseling
Total cost = $200+
Value added to house = $5

Been a while

Well, I haven't posted here in a while. Part of that was because I was deciding how much fun it would be to have a blog, then trying to decide what I should "blog" about. But mainly, I'm just a lazy bitch. My goal is to eventually get to the point where my blog is a dump of thoughts, feelings, fluids, etc. Currently, given the people I work with and know, I am not yet comfortable establishing that train of destruction as I'm sure, what's in my head isn't always going to be pleasing to everyone. But that is after all, the charm of blogs is it not? A way to quickly jot whatever you want down in an anonymous format? That's why most people peruse through blogs, to vicariously watch, while the whole world dies.