I don’t normally like to talk politics here. I know I say that every time that I do talk politics here. But this is a film blog, sometimes a life blog, not really a politics blog. I like to think I’m a relatively well informed person, I pay attention to the news and whatnot, but I’m an expert by no means on most subjects and all I really have to go on is generally my gut feelings and a minimal amount of research.

But this is also my own little soap box that I’ve built for myself here and when I have something I want to say, this is my place to say it.

I don’t even know completely what it is I want to say right now.

But today has sure been some bullshit.

I woke up feeling tired, a little flu-like achey, but generally pretty happy with the world. Things were going pretty good on my way to work. Traffic wasn’t bad. I scored some tickets to see Fleetwood Mac at the Hollywood Bowl in May. It’s Friday! I’m excited for the weekend.

And then I heard the news which by now we’ve pretty much all heard. About the shooting at the elementary school in Connecticut. About the insanely high number of victims. About yet another mass shooting.

And I wanted to cry.

Then I got to work and logged onto my computer and before I could even think about whether or not I wanted to look at either, Facebook and Twitter opened. For the most part my news feeds were filled with expressions of sadness and grief, disbelief and pain, mourning. People were sharing the same feelings and thoughts I was sorting through. I don’t know if that helped or made me more sad but it was what it was. A lot of people were also talking about hugs and loving each other and other things to make ourselves feel a little better. Those were nice posts.

So I didn’t close anything and I kept looking. Which is of course when the stupid started to happen. People saying things like the time tested classic “Guns don’t kill people, People kill people.” Or the fun theories about how if we all had concealed weapons we’d be able to stop things like this sooner. Or my personal favorite, if we’re going to ban guns we might as well ban baseball bats.

Really guys? Really?

Full disclosure here, I’m on the side of gun control. I think the Assault Weapons Ban is probably a good idea. I don’t own a gun, I don’t want a gun, I’ve only ever shot a gun once, and while that was pretty fun, I have no desire to ever aim one at a living thing.

But whatever the debates on the 2nd Amendment are, I don’t really want to take away people’s guns either. If you really feel safer with a gun in your house, then so be it. Have your gun.

So the comments on the flip side, the Let’s Ban All the Guns Ever, while maybe are equally extreme to people who like guns, don’t really bother me. I don’t see a gun ban happening anytime soon and I don’t think people who own guns really have anything to worry about. I highly doubt the ATF is going to come kicking your door in because you keep a pistol in your nightstand.

Clearly though, we need to talk about guns. Because of today. Because of Aurora. Because of Trayvon Martin and Gabby Giffords. Because do we really want to wake up to news of another shooting in another school with more children dead? Is this the kind of country we want to live in? Really?

I was in high school in Florida when Columbine happened and it was terrifying. Why are our kids still going through this?

The Baseball Bat arguments bother me the most because they’re just stupid. They’re reductive and absurd and generally end up turning what could be a moment of reasonable debate into a juvenile fight. Arguments like that insult the intelligence of everyone involved, including the person using them (assuming there was intelligence there to begin with).

I said on my Facebook that this is something we shouldn’t be fighting about today. And I sort of regret that because that’s not exactly what I meant. I meant more that we shouldn’t be having STUPID fights about this today.

We should be talking about it though. We need to be talking about it. We need this debate to be a part of the national discourse, not just a sensationalized news story at the times when it’s too late to do anything.

Gun Reform isn’t about taking away your Second Amendment rights. It’s about public safety.

But it’s also not the only answer.

We need to change the way this argument has been framed.

We need to talk about it.

This is broken and we need to fix it.

Don’t ask me how. I don’t know exactly. Gun Control may or may not be the right answer. It’s certainly not all of the answer. But whatever the answer is, we’re never going to find it when we’re caught up in making stupid arguments about whether or not we should ban baseball bats.

The baseball bats aren’t the problem here folks. They’re not even part of the problem. Stop dragging them into this, leave the poor bats alone, and be reasonable adults for once.

Or is that too much to ask?

I had to look away from the internet after a point because everything I saw was just making me angrier. The stupid comments. The bad news reporting. The whole tragedy. So instead I’ve spent my afternoon distracting myself with things not online.

Ironically, or maybe not, the best thing I read today came from The Onion. Go figure.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/right-to-own-handheld-device-that-shoots-deadly-me,30742/