A Non~Political Post

Yeah yeah yeah... Im making a Patreon that launches tomorrow and im excited and all that, promote, promote, blah blah... But I want to focus a post here about the recent events in Florida.

It is rare that I drill deep into these things publicly, beyond a retweet of someone who said it better than I could. But this is so strong on my mind that I have to speak up. In my lifetime Ive seen many mass shootings on the news and its kind of always goes to the same thing:

WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING!
ITS TOO SOON.
WE SHOULD.
MAYBE WE SHOULD...
(crickets)
Two weeks later: ANOTHER ONE! WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING! (repeat)

Let it be known, I am not against guns. I respect people who are respectable owners. I have close friends that are. They use them for personal protection for thier home, hunting, etc. I have zero, zero, ZERO problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is private citizens getting a hold of assault rifles, THAT ARE BUILT FOR ONE PURPOSE ONLY... (killing mass amounts of things in a short and quick amount of time, effectively). Without training or really NEED for such a thing. I know, it is really COOL and maybe even NEAT to have such a thing. You feel like a badass. Fine.

But I ask you to consider this:

Say, if I were to build a nuclear bomb in my home. If I was smart enough to do that... would local law enforcement let me keep it? I mean, I dont intend to use it. I just think its cool to have. Would they let me keep it? No. Of course not. Now, why wouldnt they let me keep it?

Simply this: They couldnt trust me to not use it. Say I have a really bad day. One of those days where you really wish for a zombie apocalypse to come and wipe us out. Whats to say I might not be tempted to push the shiny red button?

Im not saying people who own assault rifles feel this way. What I am saying is the item I made, in this case the nuclear bomb is TOO POWERFUL A WEAPON to just have floating out there. Say they do trust me... what if someone were to break in and steal it and then use it themselves? In short, the weapon itself... designed for ONE PURPOSE ONLY... is too powerful to be around untrustworthy people.

And I know I am untrustworthy. Some days when an asshole driver cuts me off, I am so angry at them that if I had a handgun next to me, Id drive up and shoot out their tires, fucking up their day. It gets that bad. Now you never know who is next to you in the traffic light. What if they hate your bumper sticker or the music you are playing?

All these things I mention above come to one simple statement: WE ARE ASSHOLES. We cannot take care of each other. We do not care about each other. Look at the message feeds on this current gun debate. We are calling each other names, saying how uneducated the other is, not trying to see the other persons viewpoint, etc etc. We are truly barely out of the woods on this planet. Barely out of the fucking woods. I see it in small gestures everyday on my way to work. People cut each other off in traffic. They have to be FIRST! Ive had people flip me off for going 80 in a 70, because I wasn't going fast enough for THEM. In cars we are anonymous. With an assault rifle or in another country flinging bombs, we are anonymous. We don't see the faces. We don't know who we are killing. Lesson is HUMANITY DOES NOT CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER! Fuck... we don't even care about ourselves half the time. We put chemicals into our bodies, etc.

These items, again, BUILT FOR ONE PURPOSE ONLY, are available for people to get. Mental health restrictions were rescinded last year in a law passed by the president. (dont get me started there) These nuclear bombs (so to speak) are available and those who want to inflict the most damage, will. In public places.. like clubs, theaters, churches, concerts, malls and yes... schools. Seems like we cannot go anywhere without the fear lingering.

But we must live our lives. We cannot hide or else the fear wins. I remember when the DARK KNIGHT RISES shooting happened and I planned to hit the theater the next day. I was scared to go. What if there were planned repeats? It seems silly now, but it was a scary time. I decided to still go see the movie but I sat toward the front doors. In case someone did come in, I would take a chance to jump at them or even use myself as a shield so maybe others could escape. Am I brave in that? No. I am just trying to live my life in the WHAT IF.

But my kids shouldnt. And when I think about the Florida events, I imagine burying my own kids and living the rest of my life in anger like those parents in Florida are now. Or at Sandy Hook. Or many other places where this goes on almost semi~daily... in AMERICA. America loves its trinkets dont they? And the entitlement we have as Americans to BE FIRST... to HAVE ANYTHING WE WANT, NOW NOW NOW... erodes our sanity and our complacency.

What amazes me too is a lot of the folks arguing PRO~GUN are also self proclaimed Christians. One church I read about is even raffling off an assault rifle because (and I am not telling a fib here), they say that WHEN JESUS COMES BACK HE WILL COME BACK WITH RIFLES! Yeah.They said it.

How about Isiah 2:4 ~

And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Somehow that great scripture is forgotten among these folks.

This is a gun debate, not a party or political debate. This is a HUMAN issue. We cannot take care of each other. We are ALL mentally ill. And maybe we need to wake up and agree that we cant take care of each other. And while we try to work on ourselves and our society at large, maybe we can put away the worst of the worst for a while. Maybe we dont need these major types of assault weapons out there for us or others to get. While it may be COOL and NEAT to have a killing trinket, maybe we need to let this one go for the greater good and use common sense.

But we wont. This will happen again and again. Just like throughout human existence. Until it happens directly to you... then maybe you will understand. So I invite you to login to Facebook and Watch THIS FOOTAGE ... and imagine that is coming from your childs phone. Really imagine it. And maybe you will cry as hard and as frequent as I have in the last few days.

Back to my point about me building a nuclear bomb. No, I wouldn't be allowed to keep it. Because its too powerful a weapon to leave in the hands of me, a simple monkey. Maybe some other things BUILT FOR ONE PURPOSE ONLY fall under that category too.  Think about it.

This is not the world I want to live in and its not the world I want for my boys. We gotta evolve. We gotta be better. Its mental health to choose some SANE CHOICES in what we will allow us monkeys to have.

~T

Times Like These

My friends. I'm emerging from behind my curtain of a break once again to talk about these times we live in. As you know I've been trying hard to shut out the noise of the world, but sometimes things come along that is so loud, you have to pay attention. The recent events in Orlando have me greatly saddened, as I am sure all of you are as well. I'd love to come on here and talk about recent events in my personal life, comics, movies... but to be honest, my heart isn't in it today. It seems trivial when there is so much else going on. Sometimes, a distraction isn't as important as actually facing the truth and taking it on.

I'm not going to even try to write about how senseless and cowardly what happened was. Nor talk about the back and forth reactions an event like this happens. Others are doing a better job than I:

What I would like to say is that I'm saddened to the fact that this happens every day. Out of nowhere. I'm scared to know this could happen at my kid's schools, going to the movies, going out to the nightclub.

I know, if we don't, the terrorists win, right?

How about WE win? How about TEAM PEOPLE winning for a change? We're monkeys with rocks in our hands. We're babies with a beautiful shiny button that launches the nukes. We can't handle these things. They are serpents in a garden of Eden. We're capable of so much better actions, if we allow ourselves to be that way. We can "beat our swords into plowshears and our spears into pruning sheers." We have the potential to live in peace.

But we won't. I've read articles that gun sales have spiked since this weekend. The fear continues and grows.

I hear a lot of talk during this political season about how we can make things "great" again. I read this and this perfectly sums up my feelings about us being "great":

So we can either accept that we are fundamentally flawed and will never change until we destroy each other. Or we can change, evolve and grow.

This change I seek for the overall book of humanity... I fear it will never come. As Bill Hicks said, we're a "virus with shoes." It's just us and what we got and want. We're all children wanting the bigger piece of candy or toy. We'd fuck over our own brother or sister to get it. We hate. We hate. We don't love.

I try not to despair about who we are and what we will never achieve. Because we have that shining sun in our face called "HOPE." I hope that we can change as once race. One species. One successful virus. Because I'm tired of singing this same old song.

But that's this week. Next week the paperboy will bring more lunatics to our attention. And we will do nothing to change it or ourselves. It would do us good to all sit back and think about what we bring and contribute to the big book of humanity. Because right now, this choose yer own adventure book has a fucking shitty ending.

Thanks for listening. Back to your lives. And I hope you fill your life with love... and hope.

--T