My ONLY Gun Post

In the  light of recent shooting tragedies in CT and elsewhere around the country this year, the whole situation has given me some cause for reflection.  I'm not looking to make a political post or use these terrible massacres as an opportunity to stand on a personal soap box.  But I, like everyone else in this country, cannot help but pause and ponder what exactly all this means and what I have learned.

I'm a gun owner.  I went through the process of paying for and attending a gun safety course.  I brought my certificate to the local police department and filled out an application for a Class A Large Capacity gun permit.  I paid the fee, submitted the personal recommendations, and waited.  Eventually I received my permit which allowed me to purchase a gun and carry it.  I did so.

There.  My cards are on the table.  If the above means that I cannot speak rationally or reliably on the subject...so be it. 

The point of this post is not to persuade the reader in one direction or another.  I respect your right to hold whatever opinion you have on the subject of gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.  But I wanted to share what thoughts have been impressed upon my heart in the light of these terrible murders this year.

Broken Hearts - And Getting to the Heart of Sandy Hook

The hearts of a nation are broken today as we seek to figure out how to respond to the terrible tragedy in Newtown, CT in which 20 children and 6 adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The lives of many parents, family and teachers have been forever altered by this unspeakably evil event.  A strange mixture of grief and anger wells up in our soul as we try to make sense out of this senseless and horrible massacre. 

We grieve because we cannot imagine the sorrow and pain that these families must now deal with.  We grieve because we know that our own children – though far removed from Newtown – must also cope with the fear and anxiety that this event naturally provoke.  And we grieve because, deep down, events like this display all too clearly that something is terribly wrong in our world.  Evil is not confined to stories or history or even our prisons and jails.  Evil walks openly in our streets, enters uninvited into our homes, crashes into our schools.  We cannot escape it.