A Halloween Reminder: A Lesson in Autonomy

Just a reminder that just because it is Halloween, you do not have permission to:

~Take pieces of people's costume without permission. This applies especially to pieces that are attached or in pockets. You must ask. You cannot just reach into someone's pocket at take something. This also applies to wands, tiaras, wigs, coats, accessorites (AKA everything).

~Play with people's costumes without permission: Do not grab their wings, play with their hair or head pieces, play with trains or long bottom pieces of the costume.

~Don't take people's picture without permission.

~Don't catcall people.

~Don't touch people because they are in costume: This applies to pinching cheeks, ass, or any other body parts, rubbing their back, playing with their hair, feeling their costume, etc.

Just ask permission. Just because it is Halloween, people do not give up their autonomy. They still have the right to govern their bodies how they chose. Remember that you don't know someone's situation and you don't know how uncomfortable they may be.

This applies to all age groups too...whether you have trick-or-treaters coming to your door, you are trick-or-treating, or are at some sort of costume party.

America has a Gun Problem, and we Need to Change That.

Note: I would really appreciate it you read this in its entirity before you comment on my position on gun control laws, thank you.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this recenetly. Before I get into it I want to make one thing explicitly clear from the start: I don't think guns are bad. I don't want to put an end to the second amendment. I don't think people who own guns are bad people.

But I do think America has a gun problem and I do think we need more/stronger gun restrictions. 

Being in London has given me a different angle on this situation. As the news broke of the tragic shooting at UCC, the people in London were shocked that America hasn't tightened laws in the past couple of years; especially seeing as America is averaging one school shooting a week this year alone. 

The UK (with the exception of Northern Ireland) has banned handguns following a school shooting (the first and last in the UK) in 1996. Since then, they have only had one mass shooting, period. Their police are normally unarmed (yet are trained and able to use them when necessary). From 2000/01 to 2010/11 only three police officers have been fatally shot. In the UK you may still own a rifle or shotgun with the proper liscensing, but the screening processes are intense.

I am not saying that America needs to adopt this policy. There is a differnt culture and the constitution lays out the right to bear arms,. 

So what can be done? 

There are way to tighten gun restrictions without taking away the right to bear arms. For instance, limiting the number of guns people can own, putting a longer wait period on getting a gun, raising the minimum age to own a gun, stronger mental health care, stronger laws getting black market guns out of the picture, banning assault weapons other than in the military, harsher punishment for gun violence and illegal gun possession, and strict enforcement of gun safetly. And that's just some.

I've been thinking about the arguements I've seen on facebook the past couple of days about gun violence/gun restrictions and I would just like to take a minute to break them down some, from my point of view. 

"People kill People": Yes, this is true. But I would argue that if someone tried to commit a mass murder with a knife they would get significantly less far than with a gun. Guns give the opportunity for a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Not to mention it is significantly easier to kill someone with a gun on accident than with a knife or blunt object having no extra training.

"We need stronger mental health care": WELL OBVIOUSLY. This is something people have been working on for years. But, there is a difference between neededing stronger mental health care and blaming mass shootings on "mental health issues". By blaming mental health we further stigmas of mental health issues and scare more people into not getting help. Roughly 1 in 5 Americans suffer from mental health disorders. Most don't have violent tendencies so let's nip that in the butt right now.

In a country that values our freedoms, as laid out in the constitution (yes, me too) we cannot argue that it was "written many many years ago" because then we need to be willing to give up all of our rights that we cherish.

I am a strong supporter of the right to bear arms, when, and only when it's appropriate (aka not just because we can). We do not have to take guns away to change our culture. But we do need to change the way we do things.

We CANNOT let this continue. We NEED stricter gun laws. We cannot pretend like this is not an issue any more. We cannot hope it isn't going to happen again because we've had over 140 school shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012. We have to change. We have to do something. We can't leave things as they are and expect them to change...that's one of the definitions of insanity (Thank you Stephen Colbert for that perfect sumation of insanity).