Monday January 17th ~ 2011

No matter how horrific as last weeks events in Tucson were, the citizens of my former city gathered their courage, faced the pain and embraced the people that were injured and who were tragically killed.

The questions that have followed have given me some very important thing to consider. I grew up in a household that had guns my father hunted when I was younger and so I have never been opposed to people that own firearms and hunt.

What I have become opposed to is semi-automatic hand guns and riffles whose ONLY purpose is to kill. I do not care what any "hunter" says, these guns are not about hunting and to say that they are actually belittles the true hunters.

I am now also very opposed to these ridiculous extended clips that can hold over 30 rounds of ammunition. Who, except one who is bent on destruction, needs to rapidly fire off 30 plus bullets in less than 20 seconds?

I found myself pondering many things on this holiday.

So, today we came together as a Nation to honor Matin Luther King Jr. and to remember all that he stood for and all that he fought for.

We lost this amazing man to violence as well as Bobby and John Kennedy and still we have learned nothing as a Nation. We have children going to schools and killing fellow students. We have disgruntled and disenfranchised  people going into their places of employment and opening fire.

How many more tragedies do we want our nation to endure till we see that the ease of access that we so adamantly embrace in our country needs to be rethought and addressed in a sane and reasonable manner and, I am sorry to say, the NRA has got to take a pill and be quiet.

So with Mr. King in mind and in true fitting tribute, I leave you with this final thought.

"Last week we saw a white Catholic male Republican judge murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean American combat surgeon, and this all was eulogized by our African American President."