This brings me a lot of hope! This news personnel has received NRA support and acclaim over the years for his support of them....however after the tragedy in Connecticut he, like many of us, has decided enough is enough when we have started to kill educators and 6 yr old angels! How can so many others be in a state of sleep...blind to the reality of our current society? This man....Joe...gives me hope! Mr. President gives me hope! Click here for the poignant words of a man with a changed heart.
My personal perspective of guns is that the 2nd Amendment will never be completely overwritten...but we have an obligation to protect our children. Sunday in RS we learned that our obligation as parents out weighs all other duties...and that we can not depend on the government, the public schools or the church to teach and nurture and protect our children. We have to do it ourselves. I call on all parents to stand up for the safety of our children. I will proudly stand next to my many hunter friends and family...people who proudly own guns and take the responsibility seriously, if they too will say that it is time to change the gun laws...to improve mental health care and awareness and to come together as a country at this time when our hearts are still aching for those lives lost. Now is the time to think about this...if we let ourselves move on and our hearts turn away gradually from those lost...we will forget the importance and we will allow it to happen again. I understand that people feel the need to protect their homes...but violence added on violence is not the solution. More guns would equal more deaths. We need to lower the amount of guns in circulation as our country has the most guns per people than any other country! (I heard that Yemen might be the only country with more guns). How can we not see that the issue is not easy....it is complex...but it involves too many guns, easily accessible...and that if we don't take at least small steps...we will all have to explain to our Heavenly Father how we allowed for the deaths of so many...100,000 in the last 10 years...the worst mass killings have been since 2007! How can we be so blind to the epidemic in front of us?! Are we that desensitized? Are we that apathetic? Have we forgotten the 2nd greatest commandment to love one another? I do not understand it when people say things like, "Well, I am responsible with my guns." These people are only concerned about themselves...we have become such a selfish people. I pray I can raise my children to be able to put themselves aside and to focus on others. There is no greater feeling than serving, loving or anxiously engaged in the good of other people.
I am not perfect...I strive to put my own pride aside and help others. I get too heated with people over this issue bc I cannot understand their perspective. I can't understand how my fellow LDS people can be so apathetic...and say that they can't change anything and that they will just do what they can to help and protect their own families...which usually involves more guns in their home.
When I dropped off my oldest daughter today at kindergarten I could not stop hugging her. I held back my urge to call out her name as she opened the door to the school, and to call her back to the car to take her safely home. I cried on my way home bc I ached for the people who lost their children not knowing that when they dropped them off at school it was the last time they would see their child alive. I ache for Emilie Parker's family...for Daniel's for Olivia's family. I ache for the family of that brave principal who laid down her life in an attempt to subdue or restrain the madman killing innocent children.
Children die all the time across this country from bullets of guns legally bought in our country. Many are accidents, many are suicides and murders...too many are mass killings from people who are mentally ill. What will you do today to move forward and to make a change? There are petitions you can sign, there are people you can write to urge them to change. Only when this country honors this land as a land of promise...a land given to us by the Savior and our God....only when we do all we can to ensure it is a land free of bondage will the Lord bless us and keep us safe from other nations. If we can't keep ourselves safe from gun violence within our own borders...how can we begin to prepare for outside attacks.
There will always be evil. There will always be murders and violence and crime. But does that mean we do not do all we can to prevent even a little...save even one more life? The Savior has taught that He would leave the 99 and search out that one....are we not supposed to be like the Savior? Isn't every soul of good worth and worth saving from evil...both temporally and spiritually?
This is my perspective....this is my passionate view. I have ALWAYS been passionately opposed to guns in my own home, to hunting just for sport and to murderous weapons being so readily available and highly circulated in our country. However, it takes this tragedy compacted with the many recent events like it for me to know that I have to voice my opinion and I have to do what I know is right and all I can do in order to ensure our elected officials know that many of us WANT change and will work hard to do all we can for that change.
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