Freedom is not free...
People say its dangerous to discuss politics in general, but I think that people who say that probably live boring lives worried only about how to conform to the massess. These also end up blindly following dictators. I am not one of these individuals and have healthy opinion; therefore, this entry will briefly touch upon my views of the recent massacre at Virginia Tech.
"Freedom is not free" originates from the US and is linked to the loss of lives in wartimes upholding the ideology of freedom. I think that this is very noble and it is important to remember that not everyone upholds equal values and people are needed who stand up for others.
However, "Freedom is not free" can also be viewed in a different light. Trey Stone and Matt Parker portrayed one view in Team America: World Police.
In this entry, I will portray freedom is a somewhat similar light. One where, to truely have freedom, one must accept that that same freedom can corrupt and give individual/nations access to that which they should never possess. Add to that the fact that these individuals/nations are suceptable to rage or impulse, the result is almost always disaster. Therefore I believe that sacrificing some freedom (e.g. the right to posses really big guns that are only really used for killing people or the right to possess nuclear weapons which once again are only really used for killing people, well, also diverting asteroids) is in many cases in everyone's benefit. Why does America think that way in terms of foreign policy, but not when it comes to their domestic policy?
Therefore, I am siding on the side of sensible regulation of guns. Don't get me wrong, I like guns and have shot many in my life, but if I had to give up that pleasure (I don't need to hunt to survive, although I accept that getting my meat from the supermarket has its own issues such as factory farming and cow farts contributing to climate change) in return for less gun crime and mass shootings, I would be happy to do so. Wouldn't you?
Correct me if I am wrong, but humans are inherently a lazy species. Everything we do somehow is justified by "making our lives easier". This tendancy has lead to deforestation, mass obesity, sweatshops and increasingly mass shootings. Isn't it time that we made things a bit more difficult to force people to think of better ways of doing things? For example, if Cho Seung-Hui had not had access to the Glock, what would he have done? Mass body painting, Speakers Corner-esk ranting or continuing to do what he had been doing by expressing himself through writing? Beats me, but I doubt he would have found another way of killing the 32 people he did.
I guess you can't change the past, but what about the future. Europe has sensible gun control laws, isn't it time that the US took a page out of Europe's book?