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REBUTTAL: Get Rid of Semi-Auto Guns by Shelton Beach

(The following is a rebuttal of a rebuttal of my article "What is Common Sense Gun Control?" posted in the Post Register in March of 2018. I encourage you to read my article before reading this rebuttal. Rebuttal begins after the image of Shelton Beach's article) I felt excited to read an article about some real gun law suggestions, but sadly upon reading Shelton Beach's article I was unimpressed and even surprised at the lack of actionable material in his article. Let's start with the beginning where Beach states his two-fold plan for gun laws. His first part calls for the banning of semi-automatic weapons on the grounds that "No one in America needs a semi-automatic weapon of war." At this point in the article I had to stop and shake my head a little? Weapon of War? I'm not sure, but it seems as if Beach is not aware that our military uses fully automatic weapons (i.e. when a soldier pulls the trigger the bullets just keep firing...

What is "Common Sense" Gun Control?

In October of last year, I was living in the beautiful and busy city of Las Vegas. I put my sweet 3-month-old baby to bed and woke in the morning to find that tragedy had struck our beautiful city. In the midst of the this tragedy I was honored to be part of a city that was filled with so many good Samaritans. So many people in the area pulled together to help. There was beauty in the tragedy. Then gun control advocates struck with their shouts of "It's time for gun control!" and "We need stricter background checks!" and "No one needs to have a gun!" and my personal favorite "It's time for common sense gun control laws!" Eventually all this ruckus calmed down and it seems Las Vegas' tragedy was forgotten except by those of us who lived there. In the beginning of January, my little family and I moved from that bustling metropolis to Shelley. In February another tragedy struck, this time in Parkland, Florida. I cried as I re...

Are We Expecting Too Much of Our Students?

When I started school as a chubby, dimpled five year old, I had a heart full of love for my teacher and I thought school was the bee’s knees. What could be better than spending my days full of playing, coloring and learning basic manners? Not to mention snack time. I even loved learning the alphabet (one letter a week). As the year went on our teacher gradually introduced us to more and more learning . T he last few weeks were spent learning how to sound out words. One day was spent learning how to add numbers together. I and my classmates left Mrs. Wiest’s class ready to enter the world of First Grade. Each school year gently preparing us for the learning expectations of the next. Fast forward to 2017. Five year olds are now expected to learn the entire alphabet in just a few weeks! Snack time is non-existent as is playtime, and with the current rate of recess reduction, I’m sure lengthy recesses are on their wa...

New Founding Fathers?

Since America’s inception protesting has been a huge part of bringing about necessary changes to our countries laws. From the Boston Tea Party to the brave sit-ins conducted by brave college students in the 1960’s protesting has been the means of bringing about great and very necessary change. Each of these protests were conducted by educated men and women who knew that change needed to take place and were willing to put their lives on the line to enact that change. This past Wednesday high school students across the globe walked out of their schools in order to protest “violence in schools”. Many have called these students brave, heroic and modern day founding fathers. When did it become heroic to skip 17 minutes of class and demand the confiscation of “military-style weapons” (what are those by the way?) as Ara Omotowa from Hillcrest High School did? When did it become brave to join other students your age and wander out to the quad and then return back to class? When did ski...