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Reality education ;Guns and sex
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Reality education:Guns and sex
Posted: February 15, 20021:00 a.m. Easternc 2002 WorldNetDaily.com Hate may not be a family value, but I have to admit that there are still a few things that I hate. Here are the two that top my list: handguns and unsafe sex. I hate them because they destroy lives, and the victims could fill Yankee Stadium many times over. Not just those killed by bullets and AIDS, but also those who are maimed for life or paralyzed, or prematurely pregnant, or forced to mother kids while still a teenager. And so, if it were up to me, I'd wave my magic wand and make handguns and unsafe sex disappear forever. But I'm not stupid. I know that I'd have better luck trying to outlaw cheeseburgers, chili-dogs and chocolate bars. So instead of pining away for the fantasy world of a gun-free America or teenagers (and others) to suddenly have an attack of good judgment, I'm interested in saving lives in the here and now. And I've got an old solution to a new problem, one guaranteed to upset my friends on the left and my not-so-friendly friends on the right. It's called education. Let's start with guns. Because handguns, like halitosis and athletes foot, will always be with us, I think that the public schools should start teaching gun safety to kids. A lot of my friends on the left bury their heads in the sand on this one, but we need to teach kids that guns are dangerous and need to be handled safely. We need to teach kids to respect guns as very dangerous things and that Hollywood is lying to them when it depicts gunshot wounds as neat, bloodless or noble. In the movies, the hero is always shot in the arm, and is wrapped in bandages that actually promote sex appeal. The reality - amputations, spinal-cord paralysis, brain damage and ruined, traumatized lives - somehow never make it into the script. Kids need to be taught what to do when they find a gun and how to safely unload, lock and store firearms. If you're going to show kids the mangled bodies of drunk drivers killed in accidents, or the rotted lungs of dead cigarette smokers, then I say show them pictures of what a 9 mm round actually does to human flesh at point-blank range. If ex-smokers, ex-drug abusers and ex-alcoholics can make the school rounds talking about the experience, then I say that victims of gunshot wounds - especially paraplegics, amputees and others similarly maimed - should also go on tour and discuss their experience. I hope that one day handguns will be illegal. But until then, I'm not willing to see more child victims pile up for use in anti-gun ads. Let's start educating our children to the realities - not lecturing parents who are going to buy guns anyway. Because it's about saving lives, not making political points. The exact same principle applies to the problem of unsafe sex - more education. Teenage impulses (and a lot of adult ones too) aren't going to diminish next year any more than they have in the last 5,000 years. As much as I love abstinence, I also hate early, unsafe sex. But hey, I also love free lunches, no rent and large gifts of cash - but I'm never going to get them either and that's why I save for my retirement. The point being, that we have to deal with things as they are. And for kids, where we are isn't very encouraging. AIDS and STDs continue to spread like poisonous crabgrass. Out-of-wedlock births and teenage pregnancy flirt with their all-time highs. And what do parents do? We argue about condoms and sex education, while at home we fail to teach the abstinence we claim to adore. Meanwhile our children get sick, get pregnant, get abortions and get poorer and poorer. No, I'm not talking about courses that teach, "if it feels good, do it," anymore than gun safety courses should teach sniper skills. I just want kids to get the facts - the facts that they're not getting at home, at school, on television or at the movies. Maybe it just comes down to using the schools to teach kids that life isn't really like the movies - stars who aren't really having sex on screen don't have to worry about depicting safe sex and heroes facing guns loaded with blanks don't have to worry about shock, bleeding to death or having a piece of their spinal cord shot away. No, life isn't like a movie. But if you listen to the scripts read by the left and the right on these issues, you'd think that some people would like to be in one.
Reality education on gunsPosted: February 19, 20021:00 a.m. EasternBy Maria Heilc 2002 WorldNetDaily.com On Friday, Feb. 15, 2002, Ellen Ratner, in her WorldNetDaily column Liberal & Proud, wrote on the subject of "Reality education: Guns and sex." I will comment only on the guns portion of her column. Ms. Ratner and I agree on one point: Education is necessary to save lives. Second Amendment Sisters advocates firearms education, not only for school-aged kids, but for gun owners as well. Where I don't agree is that the schools should do the educating and the method by which that should be accomplished. Parents (remember, those people who are responsible for the upbringing of their children) should see to it that children are taught about firearms, by a program of their choosing - not the anti-gun-biased public-education system. Furthermore, showing children pictures of what a 9 mm round actually does to human flesh at point blank range is not the same as showing the mangled bodies of drunk drivers, or the lungs of smokers. Drinking and smoking are choices people make for themselves. Being a victim of a criminal is something that is done to you. Ms. Ratner suggests that victims of gunshot wounds should go on tour and discuss their experience. I suggest that survivors of violent crimes should go on tour, but especially ones who have survived because they chose to defend themselves or their families by the most effective means possible - a gun. Or better yet, those who are crime victims because they were denied the opportunity to defend themselves due to laws passed against gun-owners in the name of "safety." I suggest Ms. Ratner speak to Mary Carpenter, who had three grandchildren pitch-forked to death, or Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, who saw her parents and others murdered in a crowded Luby's Cafeteria. I also suggest Ms. Ratner speak to the assistant principal at that school in Paducah, Ky., or two of the students at that law school in Virginia, or a pizza store owner in Edinboro, Pa. There will be about 400,000 people this year alone whose lives will be saved because of guns, and I'm sure some of them would be willing to talk to Ms. Ratner! Ms. Ratner's admitted hatred of guns seems to have caused her to confuse gun-owners with violent criminals. Perhaps her hatred of guns prevents her from seeing the reality of the matter. The reality is that while gun ownership is at an all-time high, accidental firearm deaths are at an all-time low. In 1996, there were only 21 accidental gun deaths for children under age 15, while nearly twice as many children under 10 years of age die from drowning in bathtubs. Even one child dying from any accident of any kind is one child too many - prevention of accidental deaths is why SAS advocates firearm safety education. Another reality is that guns in the hands of private citizens are used to prevent crime an average of 2.5 million times each year. This fact has been substantiated by at least 19 studies in the past few years. This number breaks down to just over 6,800 crimes which are prevented each day. Rapes, aggravated assaults, kidnappings and killings are prevented every day because ordinary people have chosen to defend themselves using the most effective means possible - a gun. While Ms. Ratner hopes that one day guns will be illegal, there are at least 2.5 million people each year that cherish their freedom to own a gun. These people have faced the reality that the police, as great as they are, cannot be there when a crime is being committed. It is called self-defense for a reason. Self-defense is a basic human right - that's the SAS motto. Every human being has this basic right, but the freedom to exercise this right is determined by where they live. In the United States of America, we have a document that gives us the freedom to exercise our rights - it's called the Bill of Rights. I have to agree with Ms. Ratner on one more point: Life isn't like a movie. However, I have to take things one step further: Life isn't what you see on the nightly news either! In their quest to get higher ratings, news outlets have taken the "If it bleeds, it leads!" attitude and this skewing of the news presents guns only in a bad light. As Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, found out, guns are used far more often to save lives and prevent crimes. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26516
Posted: February 15, 20021:00 a.m. Easternc 2002 WorldNetDaily.com Hate may not be a family value, but I have to admit that there are still a few things that I hate. Here are the two that top my list: handguns and unsafe sex. I hate them because they destroy lives, and the victims could fill Yankee Stadium many times over. Not just those killed by bullets and AIDS, but also those who are maimed for life or paralyzed, or prematurely pregnant, or forced to mother kids while still a teenager. And so, if it were up to me, I'd wave my magic wand and make handguns and unsafe sex disappear forever. But I'm not stupid. I know that I'd have better luck trying to outlaw cheeseburgers, chili-dogs and chocolate bars. So instead of pining away for the fantasy world of a gun-free America or teenagers (and others) to suddenly have an attack of good judgment, I'm interested in saving lives in the here and now. And I've got an old solution to a new problem, one guaranteed to upset my friends on the left and my not-so-friendly friends on the right. It's called education. Let's start with guns. Because handguns, like halitosis and athletes foot, will always be with us, I think that the public schools should start teaching gun safety to kids. A lot of my friends on the left bury their heads in the sand on this one, but we need to teach kids that guns are dangerous and need to be handled safely. We need to teach kids to respect guns as very dangerous things and that Hollywood is lying to them when it depicts gunshot wounds as neat, bloodless or noble. In the movies, the hero is always shot in the arm, and is wrapped in bandages that actually promote sex appeal. The reality - amputations, spinal-cord paralysis, brain damage and ruined, traumatized lives - somehow never make it into the script. Kids need to be taught what to do when they find a gun and how to safely unload, lock and store firearms. If you're going to show kids the mangled bodies of drunk drivers killed in accidents, or the rotted lungs of dead cigarette smokers, then I say show them pictures of what a 9 mm round actually does to human flesh at point-blank range. If ex-smokers, ex-drug abusers and ex-alcoholics can make the school rounds talking about the experience, then I say that victims of gunshot wounds - especially paraplegics, amputees and others similarly maimed - should also go on tour and discuss their experience. I hope that one day handguns will be illegal. But until then, I'm not willing to see more child victims pile up for use in anti-gun ads. Let's start educating our children to the realities - not lecturing parents who are going to buy guns anyway. Because it's about saving lives, not making political points. The exact same principle applies to the problem of unsafe sex - more education. Teenage impulses (and a lot of adult ones too) aren't going to diminish next year any more than they have in the last 5,000 years. As much as I love abstinence, I also hate early, unsafe sex. But hey, I also love free lunches, no rent and large gifts of cash - but I'm never going to get them either and that's why I save for my retirement. The point being, that we have to deal with things as they are. And for kids, where we are isn't very encouraging. AIDS and STDs continue to spread like poisonous crabgrass. Out-of-wedlock births and teenage pregnancy flirt with their all-time highs. And what do parents do? We argue about condoms and sex education, while at home we fail to teach the abstinence we claim to adore. Meanwhile our children get sick, get pregnant, get abortions and get poorer and poorer. No, I'm not talking about courses that teach, "if it feels good, do it," anymore than gun safety courses should teach sniper skills. I just want kids to get the facts - the facts that they're not getting at home, at school, on television or at the movies. Maybe it just comes down to using the schools to teach kids that life isn't really like the movies - stars who aren't really having sex on screen don't have to worry about depicting safe sex and heroes facing guns loaded with blanks don't have to worry about shock, bleeding to death or having a piece of their spinal cord shot away. No, life isn't like a movie. But if you listen to the scripts read by the left and the right on these issues, you'd think that some people would like to be in one.
Reality education on gunsPosted: February 19, 20021:00 a.m. EasternBy Maria Heilc 2002 WorldNetDaily.com On Friday, Feb. 15, 2002, Ellen Ratner, in her WorldNetDaily column Liberal & Proud, wrote on the subject of "Reality education: Guns and sex." I will comment only on the guns portion of her column. Ms. Ratner and I agree on one point: Education is necessary to save lives. Second Amendment Sisters advocates firearms education, not only for school-aged kids, but for gun owners as well. Where I don't agree is that the schools should do the educating and the method by which that should be accomplished. Parents (remember, those people who are responsible for the upbringing of their children) should see to it that children are taught about firearms, by a program of their choosing - not the anti-gun-biased public-education system. Furthermore, showing children pictures of what a 9 mm round actually does to human flesh at point blank range is not the same as showing the mangled bodies of drunk drivers, or the lungs of smokers. Drinking and smoking are choices people make for themselves. Being a victim of a criminal is something that is done to you. Ms. Ratner suggests that victims of gunshot wounds should go on tour and discuss their experience. I suggest that survivors of violent crimes should go on tour, but especially ones who have survived because they chose to defend themselves or their families by the most effective means possible - a gun. Or better yet, those who are crime victims because they were denied the opportunity to defend themselves due to laws passed against gun-owners in the name of "safety." I suggest Ms. Ratner speak to Mary Carpenter, who had three grandchildren pitch-forked to death, or Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, who saw her parents and others murdered in a crowded Luby's Cafeteria. I also suggest Ms. Ratner speak to the assistant principal at that school in Paducah, Ky., or two of the students at that law school in Virginia, or a pizza store owner in Edinboro, Pa. There will be about 400,000 people this year alone whose lives will be saved because of guns, and I'm sure some of them would be willing to talk to Ms. Ratner! Ms. Ratner's admitted hatred of guns seems to have caused her to confuse gun-owners with violent criminals. Perhaps her hatred of guns prevents her from seeing the reality of the matter. The reality is that while gun ownership is at an all-time high, accidental firearm deaths are at an all-time low. In 1996, there were only 21 accidental gun deaths for children under age 15, while nearly twice as many children under 10 years of age die from drowning in bathtubs. Even one child dying from any accident of any kind is one child too many - prevention of accidental deaths is why SAS advocates firearm safety education. Another reality is that guns in the hands of private citizens are used to prevent crime an average of 2.5 million times each year. This fact has been substantiated by at least 19 studies in the past few years. This number breaks down to just over 6,800 crimes which are prevented each day. Rapes, aggravated assaults, kidnappings and killings are prevented every day because ordinary people have chosen to defend themselves using the most effective means possible - a gun. While Ms. Ratner hopes that one day guns will be illegal, there are at least 2.5 million people each year that cherish their freedom to own a gun. These people have faced the reality that the police, as great as they are, cannot be there when a crime is being committed. It is called self-defense for a reason. Self-defense is a basic human right - that's the SAS motto. Every human being has this basic right, but the freedom to exercise this right is determined by where they live. In the United States of America, we have a document that gives us the freedom to exercise our rights - it's called the Bill of Rights. I have to agree with Ms. Ratner on one more point: Life isn't like a movie. However, I have to take things one step further: Life isn't what you see on the nightly news either! In their quest to get higher ratings, news outlets have taken the "If it bleeds, it leads!" attitude and this skewing of the news presents guns only in a bad light. As Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, found out, guns are used far more often to save lives and prevent crimes. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26516