Tag Archive for shooting

Use Your Brain and Your Heart

August 7, 2019 Comments Off on Use Your Brain and Your Heart

You may want to give in to charitable appeals for recent tragedies, like mass shootings, earthquakes, and fires.  But don’t just follow your heart–engage your brain. Be sure those donations do some real good for real people rather than enriching scam artists or CEOs.  Clark Howard offers some tips:

  • Don’t give cash. Legitimate charities will take a check.
  • Don’t give out your credit card, bank account or personal information to telemarketers. If you want to donate, initiate the call yourself.
  • Don’t fall for Internet appeals if the cause does not look legitimate and doesn’t check out. Make sure to do your research!
  • Expect specific information. Ask what kind of relief this organization is going to provide. Don’t accept vague explanations.
  • Check out the charity with national, state, and local authorities. Established charities register with the Internal Revenue Service. You can search for specific non-profit organizations on the IRS website: irs.gov.
  • Beware of newly formed organizations. If the charity is new, you may have to rely on your relationship with the company or sponsor of the organization to determine whether you trust the group.
  • Report abuses to the nearest Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General’s office. Both are listed in local telephone directories. You can also report abuses to the National Fraud Information Center at (800) 876-7060. NFIC also has a web-based complaint form at www.fraud.org.

And here’s one of my own:  Check to see how much of your donation will go to charitable work as compared to administrative costs (including CEOs) and fundraising costs.  Look them up at www.CharityNavigator.org or the Better Business Bureau site www.BBB.give.org.

For more tips on donating, check out Clark’s Donation Guide.

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Heads Up–Be Aware!

February 16, 2018 Comments Off on Heads Up–Be Aware!

Events of this week–and of many other previous weeks with similar events–make it imperative that all of us stay alert for signs of mental illness and report them when we see them.  Tell the person’s family, physician, clergy person, teacher, principal, police…anyone in a position to intervene before it’s too late.  Think of it this way: there are likely others who, like you, have noticed the signs but questioned your own judgment and so did nothing.  We learn after, for example, each school shooting that people had noticed.  What if they had said something?

The following is directly from Warning Signs of Mental Illness, an article by the American Psychiatric Association.

 

Signs & Symptoms

If several of the following are occurring, it may useful to follow up with a mental health professional.

  • Withdrawal — Recent social withdrawal and loss of interest in others
  • Drop in functioning — An unusual drop in functioning, at school, work or social activities, such as quitting sports, failing in school or difficulty performing familiar tasks
  • Problems thinking — Problems with concentration, memory or logical thought and speech that are hard to explain
  • Increased sensitivity — Heightened sensitivity to sights, sounds, smells or touch; avoidance of over-stimulating situations
  • Apathy — Loss of initiative or desire to participate in any activity
  • Feeling disconnected — A vague feeling of being disconnected from oneself or one’s surroundings; a sense of unreality
  • Illogical thinking — Unusual or exaggerated beliefs about personal powers to understand meanings or influence events; illogical or “magical” thinking typical of childhood in an adult
  • Nervousness — Fear or suspiciousness of others or a strong nervous feeling
  • Unusual behavior – Odd, uncharacteristic, peculiar behavior
  • Sleep or appetite changes — Dramatic sleep and appetite changes or decline in personal care
  • Mood changes — Rapid or dramatic shifts in feelings

One or two of these symptoms alone can’t predict a mental illness. But if a person is experiencing several at one time and the symptoms are causing serious problems in the ability to study, work or relate to others, he/she should be seen by a mental health professional. People with suicidal thoughts or intent, or thoughts of harming others, need immediate attention.

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20 Children a Day Sent to Hospital

May 30, 2017 Comments Off on 20 Children a Day Sent to Hospital

What is the cause of 20 kids a day being sent to the hospital?  Injuries related to guns, according to a new study.  People try to use safety locks and put the guns out  of reach of children, but kids are smarter and more aware than we give them credit for and know exactly where the guns are kept.

Until the middle of 2016 gun ownership was declining–from 51% in Jan. 1978 to 36% in June 216.  Today it’s up to 44%, I’d guess because of all the turmoil, violence, and uncertainty we’re currently facing.

No, it’s not the guns themselves that injure our kids because, after all, they’re inanimate objects. But more of them around increases the likelihood of more hurt children because there are more opportunities for them to gain access to these forbidden “toys.”  And more situations in which they’re innocent victims of drive-by shootings, as well as shootings related to vengeance, race, and domestic disputes.

I don’t know what the answer is.  There are pros and cons to stricter gun regulations.  Parents love their kids but are sometimes unthinking people, therefore not always totally careful locking and hiding firearms. Eliminating crime, domestic violence, gangs, and terrorism isn’t something we’ll be able to do soon.  As  I say, I don’t know what the answer is.  But I do  know that more has to  be done bring that twenty a day down to zero.

 

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Planned Parenthood/Targeted Death

November 30, 2015 2 comments

This whole attack on Planned Parenthood has me in a quandary.  Personally, I don’t like abortions.  I would very much like, in this imperfect world, to see abortions a thing of the past.  However, I question the logic of the actions of some people who share my feelings.

How can you claim to want to save lives, then take lives (physically and/or emotionally) by bombing, shooting up, or setting fire to Planned Parenthood clinics?  How can you destroy the lives of medical staff who have nothing to do with abortions as they serve poorer women’s basic health needs (e.g., exams and mammograms)?  Without health care, these women are in danger of sickness and death.  For that matter, how can you endanger the lives of the very unborn babies you’re trying to save?  You never know for sure if a pregnant woman is present, not for an abortion but for prenatal care that she couldn’t afford to get elsewhere?  How much control do you have over the bomb fragments and debris or the bullets you shoot off–enough to be sure a person just walking past the facility or police officer  doing his or her job isn’t maimed or killed?

I just don’t get how those lives are any less innocent or worthwhile than the unborn life you want to save by violently attacking an entire clinic.  Isn’t all life sacred?  It should be.

 

 

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Fight Injustice with a Bottle

August 12, 2014 Comments Off on Fight Injustice with a Bottle

The cops did it again!  They shot an unarmed kid in MO!  They claim it was self-defense, citing the supposed fact (for sure, all the people who said they saw this part are just cop-lovers) that the kid went inside the police car after the cop, which is when the first shot went off.  Then others, who really knew what was going on, say the kid was outside the car trying to surrender when the cop shot him again in cold blood.

Sure, they’ll investigate. But why wait to find out what actually happened, since they won’t be impartial anyway? Let’s show them how we deal with injustice.  I just threw a brick, breaking the window of that sporting goods store–I bet the owner is a dirty cop-lover and deserves what he gets.  So we all scramble in and take what we want from the goodies he sells, because we deserve it.  Another guy is throwing bottles at passing cars.  That’s good.  If they’re driving in this area they’re bigoted cop lovers who hate kids, and if one of them gets hit and crashes, so be it.  I hope a bus comes by–that time those other guys (they were protesting injustice, too) lit one on fire it was way cool.

This is America.  We have rights.  We demand justice.  And, look how we’re not afraid to stand up and show the world how we’re willing to fight for that justice!

Riot on!!!!!!

 

 

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Knife vs Gun

August 6, 2014 Comments Off on Knife vs Gun

There was yet another knifing on the local news.  I’m very concerned.  Shootings are terrible, but an increase in the number of knifings is, in some ways, worse.

With a gun, the assailant stands away from the victim.  He has what I call “space courage.”  That is, he has no contact with the victim and doesn’t even have to look him in the eye. It’s so easy to pull that trigger, especially with these guns that essentially shoot themselves (automatic, multiple shots).

With a knife, however, the attacker is up close.  He has physical contact and likely can’t avoid seeing his victim’s face.  He plunges the knife anyway, sometimes again and again. Each plunge requires effort and a will behind it to hurt.  That will is born and sustained by a hatred more powerful than that seen in most shootings.

Does the increasing choice of knife as weapon of choice reflect growing personal hatred in our society?  I can handle seeing a gun or a knife.  It’s that blind hatred that scares me.

 

 

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America’s Shame

June 11, 2014 Comments Off on America’s Shame

That’s what President Obama calls it, and I agree.  He also pointed out that “we’re the only developed country on earth where this happens.”  And it happens once a week!

It’s well past time to put aside politics and debates over Constitutional rights and come together–reason and act together–to stop school shootings!

 

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Sandy Hook & the NRA

December 15, 2012 Comments Off on Sandy Hook & the NRA

In light of the tragedy yesterday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in CT and all the previous shootings at schools, here’s a question for the NRA to ponder: Which is more important–the right of anyone to own a gun or protecting the lives of our children?

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