I know, I know, it’s been a few years since my last post but I think it’s time for a new one. I’ve been on the fence about writing something new for quite a while. I’ve had one written out about half way through when I realized that nobody cared about that topic, it was, at best, trivial. This one however has the nation on edge and it’s time I said something. I contemplated doing this as a Vlog but I usually go unscripted and would get so far off track, it’d take too long to get to the point, and you’d stop listening half way through. Basically it would have been the equivalent to clickbait.

How many more mass shootings do we need to have before we actually confront the real and hard to swallow problem? For 30 years it’s been about the “guns”. Because, guns drove them all to it. They walked right into the hands of these people and said “Fire”. Let’s be clear at this moment in time I am not a gun owner. Not that I don’t want to own one, I simply have to prioritize bills and food before I think about firearms.

I will not debate what the purpose of a gun is. It’s to put holes in things. So after Florida, the debate is starting to shift as nobody seems to agree as to the root cause. (I have a theory on this and I’ll get back to you on that in a little bit) Now it’s about keeping the schools safe because gun free zones don’t seem to be working.

So now the talk is about arming teachers and staff. They have not signed up for this. That is not what they wanted to do when they set out to become instructors. If they choose to be armed so be it, but it takes a certain type of person to be able to point a firearm at a living person and squeeze the trigger. They aren’t going to be mentally prepared for that.

So then, do we put armed Veterans or retired police officers in schools? That would solve the issue of mental preparedness. However there would have to be an extensive background and psych-eval to make sure PTSD doesn’t rear it’s ugly head. The last thing we need is some punk kid pushing the wrong buttons and all of a sudden the person charged with keeping the school safe goes on his own spree.

Honestly, I don’t think there are any great solutions. I’m not going to say yay or nay either way. It’s not my place or position in life to really figure it out. There is one thing that has been gnawing at me in the back of my head. That seems to really correlate to this issue. Every one of these shootings is almost always related to some kind of vendetta. We could say that there were some bullies that pushed them, or life got too much for them. I think we can go farther back for this.

So what is it I’m trying to get to? We did this. Society as a whole. Not with TV or Video games. Hell, I was raised on those things and I was bullied. No, I knew how to lose and move on. I took rejection, harshly, but I took it. I also had good friends to get through it with. If there was one kid that I could point to that could have possibly gone on a shooting spree way back in ’95-’96 time frame, it’s that one kid who got it way worse than I did. I’m not going to name his name but I promise I’ll never forget it, because I stood up for him.

This kid was the classic “nerd” glasses, skinny, and a little uncoordinated. One day a heavy snow storm hit and knocked out the power to the school. We were all in the choir room where there are no windows so it went pitch dark. Immediately this kid, we’ll call him George for the purposes of the story, bolted to the door like he knew what was about to happen. I was unaware. Somewhere in the dark I get punched in the chest. Didn’t bother me one bit it wasn’t strong enough to actually hurt. It was decided that we should wait in the hallway where it’s well lit by the windows while the school decides if it’s going to close or if they can get the power back on. The choir teacher went somewhere, I honestly can’t remember where, and I saw this group of known thuggish types surrounding George. One of them was picking on him mercilessly, so I stepped in and told him to back off. He got in my face and asked “Do you think you can take me?” My reply “I don’t care.” He backed off and took his crew with him.

Several years later I saw George, he had gained some muscle and seemed to get along with his co-workers just fine. I did find out later that he’s now Goergette but that’s another thing all together.

Today’s kids, I’m talking early childhood now, aren’t being taught how to lose or how to win. We have coddled them to the point that when life hits them in the face at a later age they don’t know how to react! We tell them that they are all winners and you get awarded just for being there! In the littlest leagues they don’t keep score, so nobody knows what it feels like to lose gets their feelings hurt.

We aren’t teaching them that in life there are winners and losers and those losers need to know how to pick themselves up and move on or try again. Yes, as a parent it sucks when your kid is upset but it’s better they deal with those emotions early on rather than when they can lash out harder and stronger. They need to know that it’s okay to lose, that there is a balance in life and there has to be winners and losers. This doesn’t just apply to the mass shootings. Remember college campuses after the election. The term snowflake was coined because they didn’t know how to lose without falling apart and needed safe spaces. How about all those riots?

Because they needed the safe spaces means that they also don’t know how to win. “But, Ken, competition breeds anger.” Maybe, but it also sets a stage where they can do their best and still lose, but then they will work that much harder for next time. I’m reminded of two great quotes, Granted they are from fictional characters but they are 100% dead-on.

I don’t know how to solve the world’s problems. I’m not even going to pretend that I can. Truth is, I cannot change anything here. Sure, security might be upgraded, who knows? Maybe schools will have metal detectors and TSA agents. All I know is that emotions are running awfully higher than they had in the past and increased even more with social media.

On another note, this will be my final post with WordPress. When I first started out, they were great, I had a lot of really good options. When I came back to post this, my options dwindled dramatically unless I upgrade to a business plan. It’s okay, I get it, like most businesses they need to make money. Personally I’d rather be out living life than trying to think of my next post. Also seeing as how much I post that would be extremely cost inefficient. I thank you all for the time to read every post. Especially the posts written by the very talented Char. I’ll leave the site up, some things have deteriorated but the text is still there. Again, thank you for allowing us inside your heads and hearts and I hope to see you around the cyberverse.

Peace OUT!

Ken Loomis