Sadly, yes. Sean Taylor, a star defensive player for the Washington Redskins died on Tuesday after being shot in his bedroom. Taylor, 24, was airlifted to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital, but died from his wounds after heavy blood loss. While Joshua and I were watching SportsCenter, he asked me why anyone would want to shoot someone else. Especially in their bedroom!!! I told him I didn't know. He cried. I wanted to. And probably would have if I wasn’t so mad. I hate guns.Photo courtesy of Tracey A. Woodward, The Washington Post
9 comments:
mike,
you have to put a terrible incident like this into persrective. some wonderful people have died in auto accidents, but you don't hate GM or Ford,
guns have served an important roll in our history, including winning our freedoms we enjoy such as this conveyance , to name one.
if you feel you have to hate something, hate the person who pulled the trigger, not the gun!
phil agnew
sorry about the spelling, "perspective"
Hey Phil, thanks for the comment!!! I appreciate you sharing your take with your wayward family members!!!
But Ghandi wrestled freedom for a huge country like India from the control of the British without a gun. And in our own backyard MLK won freedom and civil rights for black people the same way.
Just because guns have played a role in a country’s history doesn’t make them good or even neutral. Maybe if it were a drive by shooting, I could also hate GM or Ford. But alas, the burglar/assassin who shot Sean Taylor in his bedroom didn’t pull a car from his pocket.
mike,
we love all our wayward family members. it's just always hard for me when someone blames tragedy on a weapon.
it's so unfortunate that the lord put us all here on this beautiful earth, but also had to include evil in mens hearts. as we both know weapons of all sorts have been around as long as man , and unfortunately have also evolved along with us.
the dificult part is that i , and a lot of family and freinds have enjoyed our weapons, and the comrodery that goes along with the use of those weapons, in a very positive way, and have passed that same heritage AND responsibility on to our children.
the next challenging question is when we are forced into a war to protect our american soil and the freedoms that we enjoy, including the ones MLK obtained for our citizens, what do we do? would we send my brother joe to vietnam in 1968 without a firearm ? I think not. would we tell him after spending a year over there, forced to do unthinkable things, that now he cannot use a firearm for sport or hunting? I think not.
again, sad to say, if we were to revoke the second ammendment to our constitution, and decided not to allow our citizens the right to bear arms, the good would have none,but the bad would still bear arms, and THAT my dear freind is a scary thought.
give jackie and the kids a hug for us from key west and have a wonderful christmas season.
phil
mgc4kscI agree with you Mike. I hate guns! They do not serve a purpose. I thank the PEOPLE that helped us with Freedom not the weapons. I can not see how hunting is a sport. I guess the person that hunted down Sean Taylor was sporting!!!
it would be pretty hard to thank anyone who went to war for our freedoms without a weapon as they or us would not be hear. my father and four uncles who all luckily survived WW II had large families, the decendents of my father alone is in the high seventies, including mikes wife. my brother that fought in vietnam has three sons and six grandchildren.
my point is we have guns in our society, always will. all we can do is pray for the people that would actually point and shoot another human being, as they are ill, and somehow, to many people on this earth have learned to have little regaurd for anothers life.
P.S. i love to hunt deer and turkey, and i like to fish, but i only gather from the lords bounty what my family can eat.
phil
Mike,
I too am a supporter of Ghandi thought as well as Martin Clayton thought. Martin Clayton was my father. As a young child he pulled me aside after observing me play cowboys'N'indians with my friends. He gently took my pointer finger and folded it into the palm of my hand and said "This finger will never again shoot people. We do not shoot people. Do you understand." I did. Guns for hunting was in the living room and in the bedroom. It was understood that they were not to be touched. And we didn't. He would bring home a gun he had traded for something and clean it proudly...then he would let me look down the barrell and I agreed how beautiful it was. He would show me the beauty of the grain in the stock and I would gasp in at its beauty. If I touched the barrel I could ruin the bluing!! So we never touched them without permission. By age 12 I had become a pretty good shot. Dad would not let me go to the woods with him and my brothers..it was no place for a girl. So he would give me the little 22, a box of shells and told me to go to the "sand hill" with my tin cans and to "have fun". Mike, I see a gun as a piece of art...I have never shot as a living thing, just tin cans and targets. But I love guns, cars, horses and dogs..all of which can hurt you. I love them anyway. As a Certified Domestic Violence Counselor and a therapist who specialize in Adults who were molested as children, I am a hater of violence. I find the perpetrators of violence repulsive. This is the "hill I will die for". It is that "little" organ between their ears that initiates violence. If you want to get mad, get mad enough to make a difference,Mike. Hurt people hurt people. Adults who abandon/neglect,physically batter, verbally abuse the children of this nation - be a voice, Mike. I have been known for my tolerence...but this is where I am intolerent. Now for the rest of the story: when his children were raised, Martin Clayton went to the woods to thank the deer for helping him raise his children. He then said "I won't need to kill you anymore". Guns are a beautiful work of art. Carol Clayton
I still am not sold on the purpose of guns. I am happy to read that one person hunts to eat. Instead of just hunting to "sport". If the person that believes that guns are a piece of art. Then hang them up on the wall and have a musuem for them. I am confused why girls can not go in the woods. I am a big supportor of the men and women that fight for the freedoms we have. I will this Friday teach my class about Pearl Harbor and the importance of the Day. For the purpose of guns I see them as a weapon to kill and I do not believe in killing.
tMarty, I too do not believe in killing. Killing a deer is no sport...as a child we had little money and my parents did not go on welfare; instead, we had a large garden that we all worked, mom canned and the boys fished and hunted. I did not know about welfare until I took economics in HS. In fact, we never had a "poor" attitude...I just learned to work hard very young. I took archery as a PE at Andrews University...it was not a killing class...it was a activity of skill. Same as a gun, bowling, golf, etc. I test my skill at being a good accurate shot just like I test my skill in down hill skiing. I love musuems as well and in the Art Museum in Huntington, West Virginia where I have my home, there is a wonder permanent exhibit of guns with beautifully carved and inlaid stocks. Why can't girls go into the woods during hunting season? Dad, born in 1909, was very protective of his only girl, his youngest...of which I did not always appreciate. But the woods was a place we frequented often. He would take us just to look at the deer and other of God's creatures. We would skip rocks together on Lake Huron. He stopped trapping animals which brought us money..he felt bad about the little animals. I have a hard time with cruelity to people and animals...I hate fist that hurt people but fist in them selves is not bad. Keep up the good work with your class.
Carol Clayton
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