Rant #2,903: Ball of Confusion

When I was 18 years of age, at that point in my life, I was looking forward to graduating high school—I hated my four years of high school for a variety of reasons—and I was looking forward to moving on to college.
 
I had been accepted to a few schools, and I couldn’t wait to take that next step.
 
I was a relatively new driver, just getting my official New Yolk State driver’s license in the previous November, and while I worked here and there at a variety of jobs, I had to be conscious about the fact that I needed to put gas in the tank and take care of my car—my father’s old yellow medallion cab.
 
Looking ahead in school, I had one or two Regents exams to get through, and then there was the prom—which I did not go to—and then the annual senior cut day to maneuver my way through.
 
Yes, that was in 1975—ancient history to most people—but somehow, I was able to manage and get through it all, as most of us got through our high school years.
 
Today, we have two kids who are the same age I was when I only had to worry about these benign things, and they decided to go a very different route in their 18th year.
 
One decided to shoot up a supermarket, and the other decided to shoot up an elementary school.
 
One is dead, the other will face the consequences in a court of law after he has pleaded “not guilty” to the atrocity he committed.
 
One is a white kid, the other is thought to be Hispanic, but both share some sort of mental malady that took them away from their late teenage years to these horrible actions.
 
Yes, the world is different today than it was in 1975.
 
For one,, everything is at our fingertips today, all the information we need—or think we need—to get by one day at a time.
 
There is a lot of good information out there, but also a lot of bad, and these kids obviously tapped into the bad stuff, and got so enmeshed in it that it added to the psychoses they already had and enabled them—encouraged them—to do what they did.
 
Look, it has been acknowledged by everyone that this monster called social media is the way many of us fraternize with each other—this blog is certainly part of that social media thing.
 
But kids whose only way of speaking with their peers is through a computer are lacking some basic building blocks of the human experience.
 
Face-to-face socialization is so much better than doing it through a computer, and the ideas exchanged on various social media platforms are not only anti-social, they are dangerous.
 
And then we have the gun problem, which even with these two monstrosities before us, is not going away anytime soon.
 
Yes, we have the right to bear arms, but that right only extends to the fact that those arms must be borne responsibly.
 
The argument that people kill people, and that guns are to be exonerated in these actions as simply the weapon of choice, is just so misguided that I cannot believe that people continue to swear by this.
 
I have no understanding of the need to have guns—pistols, shotguns, what have you—in your home.
 
Yes, the “bad guys” can get guns and bear arms at the drop of a hat, but that is not what we are talking about here. That is certainly another very important facet of this, but we are talking about the legal, over-the-counter purchase of weapons by American citizens, most of whom understand the responsibility of safety—but why do they need to buy these things and have them in their homes anyway?
 
The checks and balances we have in place about people who should not be purchasing this artillery in the first place does ot work—i.e., the kid who shot up the supermarket—so it stands to reason that much tougher checks and balances must be put into place.
 
I suggest a multi-year vetting of anyone looking to buy a new firearm in this country—maybe two or three years from the desire to purchase a firearm to actually being able to get that weapon.
 
That would give ample time for vetting, and it might also cool down some hotheads, too.
 
And it might also pick up people like these teenagers, whose mental stability should be in question from the get go.
 
So please, don’t tell me anything about your rights being taken away by not being able to purchase, legally, a firearm. That does not hold water in today’s world.
 
Also, the ability to purchase scads of body artillery should also send up a red flag to authorities, and that should be included in this longer vetting period.
 
As it is, one of these teens is dead, the other will stand trial, but are we actually going to learn anything from these two episodes that we haven’t yet learned from others?
 
I don’t know, but things have to change, and they have to change ASAP.
 
You can’t have anyone, and you can’t have teenagers who should be looking forward to the rest of their lives, committing such heinous acts.
 
Teens should be enjoying their young lives, going out with friends, cruising in cars, and looking forward to college or a trade school or a new job or something else than venting their anger at innocent people.
 
Look, 1975 was a really long time ago that goes beyond the number of years that have elapsed since then and today. The world has changed greatly, but not necessarily for the better.
 
But in 1975, the last thing on my mind was getting a gun.
 
I had enough to worry about with impending Regents exams, senior cut day and going to college.
 
And that is the way it should be for ALL 18 year olds, whether we are talking about 1975 or 2022.
 
Let’s get back to that type of environment, because the one we are in now can only lead to a collision course for even more tragedies like what happened during the past week or so.
 
Can’t we all agree to that?