My Thoughts on the U.S. Gun Debate

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you are having a great day before Christmas is here. As usual, it’s time to cover another topic at “Delvarian’s Assorted Stuff”. Today’s topic will be my general thoughts on the debate on guns in the U.S. Like every other article on this site, your mileage may vary – you may have other opinions on this topic. And seeing how heated this debate is and how passionate some of the arguments are on both sides, this is a must have. But enough with the disclaimers and whatnot, time to dive into the topic at hand.

As many of us can recall, gun debates have been happening all across the U.S. Not just simple ones, but serious ones. As in whether if people should have guns at home or should be prohibited from carrying or owning a gun. One of the proponents’ (for having guns) arguments is that guns are needed for self-defense and without them, security will decrease. On the other hand, opponents say that it will be misused and people will go crazy. On both sides, cries of government doing too much or too little and people’s rights being violated are thrown into this heated debate. It has gotten so huge that even state and government officials fight for either side – leading to some states having different gun regulations. But, one of the main problems of this major argument is that many people cite that gun regulations have a black or white morality or something related to this. When in reality, morality with guns is more or less in shades of gray.

Guns have a proper usage and an improper usage. They can be used for hunting and self-defense or they can be used for criminal acts. Yet, the main problem is with the person, not the gun itself. The gun is just a tool and therefore, has no morality attached to it – it doesn’t make any decision. Rather, it just follows the demands of the wielder. On the other hand, the person holding the gun has a morality and acts by him/herself – in other words, he or she is sentient. Thus, he/she has the ability to follow the right path, follow the wrong path, or most commonly, follow a mix of the paths. They can make the gun a tool of benefit or a tool of death and destruction. So, if politicians wanted to eradicate the gun problem, the best solution would be to fix the nature of human beings – an impossible task. But, the main point is that, the human, not the gun chooses to make a decision, and that decision is most of the time, morally gray. Therefore, gun debates cannot use the saying that there are only good and bad ways to use a gun. There is a proper usage but, when used with other people of shady morality, the “correct” decision becomes hard to determine.

For example, let’s say a criminal were to break in a home and threaten the residents with a loaded gun. In this case, if someone had a gun and was willing to the protect his fellow residents, then he had permission to take out the intruder for the sake of saving more lives. Here, the decision taken was not sparkly clean (in most morality systems and religions, killing is generally wrong) but, he averted a possibly more tragic outcome of many or all people being killed. Imagine if guns were restricted and not allowed – the outcome will have been totally different and would be based more upon the criminal’s morality. So, the argument and belief of the usage of guns having a black and white morality is completely false. Nothing in life is completely right or wrong – sometimes people cannot even tell what some decisions’ outcomes will be.

So what can we do to fix this issue? Well, first off, education is a must. Most of the time, people who argue in this debate are misguided due to not having a clear viewpoint or an open mind. Fixing a closed-mind may prove tough to accomplish, but the main point would be to educate the masses on both sides of this issue. People can demonstrate how morality for guns, as with everything else, is gray, not purely right or wrong. But most importantly, emphasize that the debates aren’t bad in themselves - it is just the miscommunication and misinformation that are bad. Proper gun laws have to be put in place to make the country better. However, it must be done in the proper way so it balances the right of the people and the safety of our society. Of course, any change will bring controversy and outrage. But, it’s just that we, the people of our nation, how will have the final say on this topic and how the nation will move forward in the years to come.

Thanks once again for staying with me folks. I hope you enjoyed my general insights into the gun debate. The topic is more complicated than what it appears to be. But, this provides a brief look in what needs to be improved or fixed. Well then, like usual, comments, suggestions, and corrections are always appreciated. I hope you all have a great Christmas beginning tomorrow! This is Delvarian from “Delvarian’s Assorted Stuff” signing off! Have a wonderful holiday!

My Thoughts on the Cause of the U.S. Recession

Welcome to Tuesday’s blog entry from me folks! Today’s topic will be about my opinions surrounding the various financial crisises in the U.S. or in short, the U.S. recession. Just as a disclaimer, your mileage may vary on these opinions. You may agree or disagree, and there might be a better way to look at this. I’ll only cover a minute section of this major world issue, although more articles examining this topic shall come in the future. But without further to do, let us delve on this controversial subject.

As we all know these days, the financial health of the U.S. is in crisis – as is the rest of the world’s credit. The world can be considered at peril if some actions take drastic actions to secure their money back – which could lead to wars and genocide and the like. But before that, let’s go back a few years and see the cause of this giant mess. In the olden days, people used to very rarely borrow, mostly relying on cash at hand for buying or trading goods. Heck, even before that, people just bartered instead of using hard cash. Consequently, little to no debt was incurred and trust was kept in balance. As the years went by however, people began to dabble in investments and loans which at first, mostly went well. However, it eventually reached the point where they became so unregulated that the banks could do nearly anything – they were greedy to put it at best. All those completed rules, procedures, and plans to confuse people when working with a bank to squeeze every penny from the customers/investors. It wasn’t too bad at first, as most people paid off their debts, yet it eventually reached the point (sometime at 2006) where part of the system collapsed as most of the borrowers could not pay off their debts.

Why did this happen? This happened mostly because the banks tricked their customers into picking wrong options to earn a profit. In this age of capitalism, people traded money, and non-existent money or debts. This caused the system to be pretty unstable if the debts were unmet and as proven by history, the financial system had practically collapsed and had to be re-stabilized by the government by bailouts. People could not pay back their loans, so businesses closed down, the economy closed down, and even banks became more stringent in handing out loans. Yet still after cutting down on money, the big companies give huge corporate bonuses… Partly ironic in this age of financial problems.

In fact, the current national debt is 11 trillion dollars and growing. Imagine the consequences of the nation becoming bankrupt. The consequences and possibilities are horrifying to confront at best – not to mention the domino effect ensuing. Yet, as stated above, people are still greedy as before if not partially more and some areas. Sure people are more wary of their money more but, still have their petty issues with greed and pride. In fact, the main cause of this mess was not only due to greedy banks but also driven mostly by greedy consumers. They had the “I want it now!” mentality on having items. Thus, most of them took loan after loan to buy item after item never feeling satisfied – leaving an increasing pile of debt. Where did this lead to? The situation we now all see and encounter today. It did drive the GDP of the country up (short-term gain), but at a huge negative (long-term) cost.

To be even more precise, some keywords here to note would be short-term and long-term. I would go highly into detail on this topic today (I’ll focus on this at another day), but to put it bluntly, people more or less, focused on the short-term rather than the opposite. The majority of the population, low-level or high-level, focused on short-term pleasures and never saved up - eventually causing this huge deficit across the world. This is one the primary faults of the human race and must be addressed (as in more heavily) at one point or another if we wish to survive.

But, many will ask, “Can we escape this crisis?” The answer is yes or no. It depends on whether the people of the U.S. can cooperate, spend less, and save more. It will decrease the GDP, but it’s better than increasing the national debt at the rate we are going. The next thing would be to fix the government policies that waste money and reward the wrong people. Afterward, we must team up with other countries to fix up their messes and eventually hit the green – if possible. Of course, many countries won’t cooperate – but, it is in our best interests if we do. Besides, it is better than having more wars all across the world. On the other hand, we may be able to take out this problem but only for it to come back as “history repeats itself”. Yet, if we (as in, a majority of the world’s populace) can band together to push for a better future we can theoretically, fix this worldwide financial crisis and avert a world war. It is a huge demand to ask for and may be a too optimistic goal for the most of you, but we all got to try. That’s one of the beauties of the human-race, banding together for a common-goal whether it be malevolent or benevolent.

Thank you for staying through this minor-essay of my thoughts! I hope you enjoyed it and I also hope to see you all tomorrow. As always, suggestions and corrections are welcome. Remember to refer this to your friends. This is Delvarian for “Delvarian’s Assorted Stuff”, signing off for the day!