"A cry is heard...."

     If you felt the earth tremble this morning it's because I darkened the doors of a church.  Almost completely unplanned.  We'd gone to ride around and look at Christmas lights last night and decided to stopy by a live nativity we saw while out...because, as I've said, it's not her fault she married a neanderthal.  I'm determined to make this Christmas infinitely more special for her because she enjoys Christmas and spent most of the last holiday season mourning the sudden loss of her best friend (on December 14, 2011.)   We learned the church having the live nativity had, coincidentally, a woman serving as minister that I'd known since she served as associate pastor for the church I grew up in (seemingly 100 years ago!)   So we made an off the cuff decision to go see what the Rev DeDe Leetch had to say this morning.  When she stood up to pray she read from the book of Jeremiah.  I had to do a little online searching to find the verse, but it was Jeremiah 31:15:

"A cry is heard in Ramah--deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted--for her children are gone."  

  You could immediately hear the sound of people sniffing and people reaching in pockets for handkerchiefs and tissues.  We were in Lawrenceville, Georgia  - a long way from Connecticut.   But the immediate reaction of many showed the dagger that's been sent to the heart of this entire country.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/12/newtown_tragedy_how_the_school_shooting_could_finally_change_how_americans.html

     Back in 1990-something, I had jury duty in DeKalb County and was frustrated to find myself selected for a jury pool.   I didn't want to be there and knew that during (that part of the trial process where they question potential jurors that has some Latin name I'm too lazy to look up right now)  I had to come up with some crazy-ass answers so that I could get back to work and making money.  it was a concealed weapons case so when the defense attorney came to me and said "Mr. Freeman, how do you feel about gun control?"  I said "well, I have friends that hunt and have respect for their right to own hunting firearms.  But handguns are made for one thing - to kill people with.  If you've got one in your pocket, you're probably on your way to kill somebody with it."  I was back at work that afternoon.

     Today, I repeat that same theory but believing it more than I did back then.  Gun control ain't got a thing to do with the 2nd amendment.  Gun control has to do with the type of guns that are legal.  Someone that's out putting some venison in the freezer has no need for something that will fire a zillion rounds a minute.  A true sportsman wants one shot.  If you want a pistol to keep your loved ones safe at night, I also find little need for it to have capacity for large magazines.   You might say the intruder will have the large magazine and he might...and that takes us back to the issue of true gun control.  I'll grant you - I'm speaking about something I know little about.  But I know enough to know that something's broken....or as the article I've linked above more aptly puts it:

"We need to reckon with the kind of country we actually are—one in which semi-automatic weapons are used far more often for harm than for self-defense—and act accordingly."