So if one is inclined to choose between God and country

Neither God Nor George Washington Wrote the Second Amendment

canada goose uk outlet Constitution. George Washington wrote neither the second amendment nor the second commandment. canada goose uk outlet

After I recently discovered through a Washington Post op ed that someone with whom I attended grad school had been shot in her early childhood, along with her mother who was rendered paraplegic for the remaining 20 years of her life, I wrote a post discussing my feelings about the state of gun violence in our country today. Norah canada goose deals Vawter’s story reminded me of Lucille Ball’s memoir, in which she shares that her childhood had been destroyed by the shot of a gun, as well, and so I discussed that, too. In fact I led with it, because it’s a curious bit of trivia that I don’t think many people know.

canada goose coats Vawter was the victim of intentional violence, whereas in Ball’s story the shooting was accidental, by a child against a child. I acknowledged the difference between the two tragedies; I positioned them side by side because they materialized together in my mind as two sides of a heavy coin that’s made of violence. Accidental or with malicious intent, lives were tragically interrupted by these incidents. canada goose coats

Canada Goose Online Our culture has a few supremely divisive political issues, from “pro life” vs. “pro choice” to “pro LGBT civil rights” vs. “protection of traditional marriage.” “Gun control” vs. “gun rights” is one of these issues that has collected into this utterly unresolvable good guys vs. bad guys mentality. Another is canadagooseoutletcanada “God and country” vs. “science and reason.” Canada Goose Online

uk canada goose outlet I have difficulty making sense of these oppositions because, to my mind, they are unrealistically black and white. Political spinmasters in many cases determine such oppositions as a means by which to polarize voters to make the harvesting of mass ballots based on ideology more efficient. As a simple example and this is my opinion based upon my life’s experiences and my way of thinking same sex marriage simply is not a threat to the integrity of opposite sex marriage. It just isn’t, and I’ve never heard a sound case that it could be considered as such. You live in your house, I live in mine, and nothing we do in either can injure the sanctity of anyone else’s values or religious beliefs. Those who believe otherwise are, in my opinion, taking the bait and being yanked around by someone on the other end of the line. uk canada goose outlet

canada goose So it goes with the prevention and reduction of preventable violence. In my opinion. canada goose

canada goose uk black friday Several people contacted me about my previous blog to state opposition one telling me that both my thoughts and my work are valueless and that I, as a person, am a “waste of time.” In response to another who used a slightly less nihilistic approach to communication, I canadian goose jacket said that I welcome and invite respectful debate. He said that I can’t be a part of a respectful debate when I have a “one sided opinion.” I beg to differ. canada goose uk black friday

Canada Goose sale An opinion is a perspective, and not all perspectives fall on either side of a party line. Canada Goose sale

buy canada goose jacket I canada goose coats on sale applaud measures to investigate backgrounds of those who canada goose black friday sale own firearms because it’s a measure to improve public safety. My motivation for Canada Goose sale supporting this is the undeniable Canada Goose Outlet escalation of mass killings by firearms over recent years. In schools and on college campuses. I don’t have children, but this phenomenon weighs very heavily on my heart, and my mind reels every buy canada goose jacket cheap time I see stories about mass shootings: why can’t we have reasonable conversation about fixing this? Do people really not regard this as a problem worth addressing? I think they know we do. But we’re programmed to be on one side or the other of the gun control/freedom debate and that squashes any remedy before it can even be conceptualized. buy canada goose jacket

canada goose black friday sale I canada goose straddle many partisan political divides, including this one. I don’t think it has to be all or nothing; but I do admittedly side toward gun control because I haven’t become numb to hearing that 20 children were massacred in their school. This is simply not the United States of America that I grew up in; ours is a seriously degraded and dangerous climate, and I can’t even imagine how today’s children will think of their country when they are my age. canada goose black friday sale

I don’t understand, and I’ve never heard any reasonable justification for, the selling of automatic weapons manufactured for the sole purpose of killing human beings en masse. Constitution.

buy canada goose jacket cheap Which brings me to false dichotomies and the title of this post. Someone replied, curiously, to my previous story by writing: “This is in violation of our Second Commandment. Washington wrote that we Americans have the right to have guns to protect our family and friends.” [Sic.] buy canada goose jacket cheap

Canada Goose Parka To clarify a few points that I think are fairly well supported by the historic record: Canada Goose Parka

cheap canada goose uk The second commandment, roughly translated as “you shall have no other gods before me,” is more correctly attributed to the God of the Hebrew canada goose store Bible, not George Washington. Constitution is a part of the Bill of Rights the first 10 Constitutional amendments and these were written by James Madison and George Mason, not George Washington. George Washington Canada Goose Parka and the God we know from the Bible were Canada Goose Jackets most likely not the same individual. God, not only within the Ten Commandments, but throughout the entire texts of the Old and New Testaments, never took a position on guns. Not once. God did, however, place “you shall not kill” at the very top of his list of commands. So if one is inclined to choose between God and country, country at this time is the one that supports killing; God, since the day canada goose coats He appeared to Moses, has been utterly opposed to it. cheap canada goose uk

These points may come across as sarcastic, but it seems to me that many Americans honestly conflate their religious scriptures with the United States Constitution and it may therefore be worth mentioning that these are entirely separate bodies of work.

A couple of months ago as I was watching The View, I welled up as I watched tears roll down a sincerely shaken up Candace Cameron Bure’s face in the aftermath of a mass shooting. She said that, as “a conservative person,” she fully supports second amendment rights and yet, as a mother, she couldn’t help worrying about her children’s safety in their schools. She said there has to be a compromise between the freedom to bear arms and safeguarding the safety of children. Why is that a controversial statement? Setting aside political partisanship or any subject of typical Internet trolling, it canada goose clearance sale just can’t be.

Canada Goose Outlet Even though I don’t have children and don’t subscribe to any canada goose clearance prescribed dogma, political, religious or otherwise, I agree wholeheartedly with Cameron Bure and share her emotional distress. At the same time, I am always thoroughly confused and disturbed when I witness anyone speak against their own interests for the sake of aligning their views with the team. That’s folly, not only because it’s self condemning, but because it’s just not a real dichotomy. Not all Republican party members resist gun control measures, from background checks to separating (as we must) handguns and rifles from semiautomatic and automatic weapons. And that religious beliefs in our country are somehow so commonly associated with unconditional support for all guns feels to me like an absolute blasphemy; certainly the founder of Christianity, the religion of most advocates of semi /automatic weapons who I know, did not promote the use of the machines of war that are semi and automatic guns. That’s not an attack on anyone; it’s an observation I can’t make sense of. How does a pro life stance not include preventing deaths by shooting whenever possible? I can’t reconcile this paradox. I know that expressing thoughts like these pushes buttons and triggers angry reflexes. But I don’t understand why, unless the explanation is cultural indoctrination. Canada Goose Outlet

Canada Goose Coats On Sale I am troubled deeply by the prevalence of violence today. That’s where all this is coming from; I am pointing out the fallacy of associating unrelated values with an all or nothing approach because this pattern of thought and behavior that has become the norm is counter productive. Canada Goose Coats On Sale

canada goose clearance The truth is, we can respect the second amendment and honor the Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms while also taking reasonable canada goose outlet and logical measures to control mass killings which, in my opinion, begins with recognizing that every life destroyed by a gunshot did not have to be destroyed. From there, we should ask what circumstances led to the tragedy and determine measures to prevent that from happening. canada goose clearance

One thing almost all of us can certainly agree on is that kids should be able to go to school with buy canada goose jacket no worry of a spray of bullets interrupting their classes. Right? Can we start there and work toward some way to make that our new reality.