Yes, People Kill People But….

Look, I do not talk about this a lot. Yes, I DO support the right of EVERY law-abiding citizen to own a gun, but mental health in this country has to be addressed.  I’m not into all this gun grabbing crap a lot of people are trying to push for,  but I see nothing wrong with flagging people who have severe behavioral disorders from getting a gun. If people are arrested for domestic violence, robbery, assault, etc…they should automatically have their guns confiscated also until found not guilty–and if found guilty, they should not be returned to anyone in the household, but sold to cover costs incurred by the county and/or state.

I do not agree with the extreme left on this issue because they give off a perception that they do have a goal to take ALL guns away, or at least many of them do. However, these violent groups of people have to be dealt with.

I do not think it is that much to ask for. I’m not advocating limitations on all guns or gun sales, just to individuals who have such records.

Had such a system been in place in the 1970’s my stepmother might not have blown her brains out when I was almost 15. Was she mentally ill? Yes. We found out AFTER her death that she had been institutionalized. Her favorite thing to do when my dad was at work was to point that .22 that she killed herself with and put it to my temple as her method of “discipline” which was nothing more than terrorism in my home.

To this day, people, I can still feel the cold end of that gun at my temple. Sometimes I wake up dreaming about it. It was only after she died that I realized that this wasn’t just a surrealistic nightmare I lived in, but that she could have, at any moment, blown my brains out and anyone else’s in the house too.

Unless you lived through it, I know you can’t relate to it and more went on than that, which I will not discuss. Funny thing is I didn’t really realize what “normal” was until I got around “normal families” that sat at the table together and such after her death. I grew to pity her. Hopefully, she is at peace. I forgave her long ago, and despite the nightmares I have once in a while, I can still feel pity for her and understand that she could not help herself–but that the state failed to help her a long, long time ago.

I will say this much for those who have gone through something like this at the hands of a mentally ill relative or person close to your family. What helped me was to forgive her. Once I did that, the nightmares gradually happened less often, and became less intense. I actually stood over her grave about seven years ago and told her that I forgive her. Anyway, I hope that does help someone out there. I know forgiving her did help me.

Elliot Rodger…All That’s Left is “Why”?

This is another one of my short rants. We’ve got a director blaming the NRA for the deaths of innocent people. Evidently he doesn’t know squat. Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. He needed help. His parents tried to get him that help. Had the Santa Monica Police Department seen the warning signs of trouble in his videos, MAYBE they could have gotten him committed to a psychiatric facility for at least 45 days. Had they done that, 8 people might be alive today. THAT is the bottom line of it. In my opinion, mental illness doesn’t excuse an action or make it right, but it does help explain the “why” of it to a degree.

Now I want to know what also figures into this “why”? Was this guy bullied all his life or something? THAT is the vibe I got off of watching some of the videos. He doesn’t really come out and say it, though. The reason I say this is that a lot of shooters seemed to have experienced school bullying. THIS is one thing I personally would like for the public to know. Hopefully one day all the families, including Rodger’s, will have the answer to that “Why?”

However the political “blame game” is not going to cut it this time. People need to quit using others’ tragedy to earn brownie points or to get people to take a look at their work and that is what the director that made the NRA comment is doing. That’s right. I’m calling him out.  He’s using a colleague’s tragedy to make a name for himself. They don’t need to use it to further politics either. People are sick of that tactic already, and before anyone starts complaining and moaning, I don’t own a gun myself. I never have. I probably never will because I don’t need one. However, I do support the right of law-abiding citizens to own one.

 

Troubling Thoughts from a Military Brat….

My father, Kenneth B. O’Neill, USAF Ret (1972) served honorably in our military for 20 years. I learned a lot from him in my youth. One of the things I learned is that if the government is going to try to pull some kind of crap on the population of the country, then it will try it as an “experiment” on military bases and/or personnel first.  We saw this occur throughout History but there is ONE thing that should NEVER be done–and that is making military bases “gun free zones”.

To me, it is an experiment to see how a gun ban would work on a smaller scale, but here lies the problem. The government is not taking in the fact that it opens our soldiers, sailors, airmen/women, and others up for attack. If you want proof of that, I only have two words for you: “Ft. Hood”.  If ONE single soldier had a sidearm, the guy might have been stopped before killing 3 other people.

Aside from that, to me it is akin to treason to deliberately  put our military personnel in harm’s way and for that alone I think this administration should be held accountable.  This is a lesson that failed and the administration should not only have taken a note from the first Ft. Hood shooting a few years ago, but from the Naval Yard shooting as well.

This being said, I’m sure my dad is doing somersaults in his grave . After this incident it is time to give the bullets and such back to our military personnel and it is time to tell our government to NOT disarm our law enforcement officers as well. I think that might come next!

On a Not So Special Day…

In October of 2000, I remember going to Eastland Cemetery in Eastland, TX…I found my way to the woman whose suicide I blamed myself for many years…She wasn’t famous.  No one heard of her except the locals who knew of her tirades.  Her name was Judy.  She was my stepmother.  For about 3.5 years, I endured much at her hands but it was on this day that I came to one stark realization.  She could not help her mental illness.  In the last two weeks of her life, she thought she was four years old, and that I was her mother.

For years after her death, I kept asking, what if I had done this? What if I had done that.  The fact of the matter is that it does not matter, especially now. There are two things nobody has control over besides life and death and those things are the past and future. Neither can be changed. However I spent much of my 20’s trying to run from the memories of what went on in my home during the time she was with us. It was rather violent. I got shoved into walls, cabinets, picked up and thrown into one once–and those times were on the days when she wasn’t too pissed off and went off on EVERYONE.

Do I hate her? No.  Do the memories of a pistol getting pointed at my head still haunt me? Yes. That is probably why I never owned a gun. However times change and I do often think about obtaining one now. Please, if you’re into gun control, don’t preach at me. My family hunted for decades and before that my ancestors did also.  Not everyone who owns a gun is a nut-case.

Anyway back to my point.  There is only one thing that enabled me to get beyond the shadows of the past  when it came to her and that was to make this particular trip, on this not so special day to her grave.  It was in the 60’s and the sun was out.  And I stood here for a long time pondering what I would say if she were to stand next to me. It was then I said something very close to this:

This is my stepmother’s grave. My father was buried elsewhere

 

“It has been many years now. I have done some digging and now I can understand why you were so tormented over several things. Losing your own children and losing two sisters prior took a toll on you. I understand now, Judy. I understand the hell you went through at home as a child too. I forgive you.  I actually forgave you a long time ago but I had to come here to say it. I hope that you are at peace and that you are no longer suffering. I would wish what you endured on nobody now that I have put it together.”

Her suicide took a devastating toll on my emotions all the way through high school and beyond. I buried myself in my writing and my school work. I almost ended up getting into cutting but one of the counselors saw my journal and encouraged me to channel my energy elsewhere.  That was when I picked up a pen.

The chilling remarks when I came back to school after her death were the most cutting. Some new kid asked why anyone would shoot themselves.  My teacher in that class was a coach everyone got pissed at every day it seemed.  As I sat there he said, “I don’t know but women usually don’t go around shooting themselves because they are afraid to mess up their looks.”

I was livid. There is no way he didn’t know about her suicide being that he worked part-time for DPS.  I got up and bolted out of the room.  I stayed home for a couple of days and was in a different class after that. My dad made sure of it.  Even in her death the bullying and idiotic behavior of some of the other students continued as well. I never forgot that either. To them it was all a joke.  Well I hope they enjoyed their years at school afterward, because much of their entertainment came at the expense of others who were broken. This is why I don’t attend class reunions either–along with many others who opt not to show.

It is actually them I feel sad for. Even in adulthood they do not have a clue as to the scars they inflicted with their actions and words, yet most have suffered their own tragedies and seem to forget their past actions.  Ironically, I forgive them too. Some will have much to answer for one day. Until then, I will live my life and continue to work to get questions answered. For Judy, it’s the least I can do. She deserved better than what life dealt her.

 

Gee…Ya Think?

Disclaimer: The following post is meant to be a sarcastic rant and nothing more. It is not to be taken seriously. If  you really believe that I mean this stuff in a serious context, please seek counseling on the big, brown ugly ass couch and you will feel better since  I will not respond to any post that tries to make this more than the piece of political dark-witted tripe that it is!  Of course watching certain political figures using certain tragedies and the victims of them for their own gain sickens me as much as anything else.  Both parties do it. That is my opinion…

In light of the latest attack on 15 people at the Lone Star College in Cypress, TX some fringe groups are beginning to lobby congress to pass requirements that box cutters, utility knives, sharp gardening tools, hatchets, machetes,   and such materials would  be sold only to those who are contractors in the State of Texas or those who are utilizing these tools must be in possession of a sales tax certificate that will enable them to sell arts and crafts that they produce.  Anyone else who wants these must take a 3 hour training course requiring safety rules be taught on where these can be kept and such.  There will also be a number on the limit of blades and such that anyone can buy for a refill.

Alright…I’ve already established that this is nothing more than dark witted tripe.  So now you are probably thinking, “What the hell is she going on about?”  It is simple. I will spell it out for you.  Whether it is a gun with a limited number of bullets, or a box cutter, they can both become “mechanisms for confrontation”. There is one thing people might want to consider in the gun debate though. With a limited number of bullets, it will take time to re-load, which will give people time to escape or take down the attacker.

On the other hand, a box cutter, utility knife, or other sharp items–like machetes,   can be used repetitively, relatively silently, and swiftly before anyone can take any action because those doing it can hide in a crowd if they get away, and the people who commit crimes using guns or this type of weapon are the exceptions and not the rule. More laws and such will not stop these killings.  The events at Lone Star College only serve to prove the point.

There are other points to ponder here.  Shouldn’t those who are known to be deranged enough to commit such an act have access to anything like this?  I am willing to bet that most will answer “no”, but the only way to stop this is to stop closing down mental health facilities and stop having more staff at the mental hospitals than beds available for the patients. People who are this far gone should not be running around loose and untreated in a free society. 

To continue to allow this will only endanger more people. And for those who have no record of mental illness who commit such depraved acts the answer is simple. When they kill, rape, and or cause grievous bodily harm, lock them up.  NO light sentences for violent crimes and such.  That will stop a lot those who can obviously tell right from wrong from going to the “largest hotel chain in the U.S.”–which is the correctional facility.

To think that outlawing or severely limiting ownership of any mechanism of confrontation, whether it be a gun, machete or whatever is going to stop crimes or reduce the numbers dying each year is, at best, erroneous thought.  Again, the people who commit these acts are the exception and not the rule and since they are the ones doing most of the violent acts, they will find other ways to carry out destruction regardless of what is taken away from society.