I would like to recommend Chytha's blog and a specific post related to this incident:
http://chythasresonance.blogspot.com/2011/01/self-restraint.html
I posted a reply that I shall reprint here. I encourage any and all thoughtful replies, ideas and perspectives.
"If we are to seek peace, connection with others and growth, there are certain things we must accommodate and others that need to be left by the trail side. For travelers West, they needed to take a scrutinous view of everything they carried in their wagon for it meant success or failure as to their goal of surviving the Oregon Trail. Or the one to Sacramento. "Will it continue to serve us or should it be discarded?" is the question they had to ask about everything from a favorite but now useless pot, a wheel that, under normal circumstances could be repaired, and even fellow travelers.
Many died along the way. Some suffered because they took the wrong advice and met dire times (i.e. the Donner party) while others suffered a broken wagon train due to bickering, in-fighting and equipment failure.
In every case though, it was the view of the whole mission that determined success or failure. It was the reality that nothing could be held onto for perceived or sentimental value and certainly nothing that detracted from the mission itself. If it became apparent that a new trail was not useful, an animal not able or a strategy inferior, they were to be discarded immediately.
When I hear people hark back to the 2nd amendment as their "right" to bear arms, it makes me wonder if, in fact, the arms that those who penned this amendment were the ones in use today. Actually, it does not. I know that the "arms" the writers were thinking of were quite different and the motivation for writing this amendment was based on the threat, at that time upon the new nation, that was, England, potentially France and Indian. But in every case, it was to defend the nation.
So now we are talking about intent and specificity. These are the two weak legs fervent supporters of today's weaponry stand on. That and the mass of insecure and "very patriotic" folk who insist that they will give up their guns when the weapons must be pried "from their cold dead hands".
Until their hands are indeed cold, dead and wrapped around a modern weapon of choice, I must ask, will they likewise support the "cold dead hands" of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green who was killed at the hands of a semi-automatic 9 mm with extended magazine? I think not.
Her attendance at the Tucson "Congress On Your Corner" event held on December 8 was with the intention to understand how her government worked. Why would a 9-year-old want to understand her government? She was a member of her elementary school student government and took a keen interest as even her birth was on a momentous day for this nation, September 11, 2001. Will these vehement gun folk ardently support young Christina's "cold dead hands"?
Again, I say, not likely. Not if it means opening their hearts to humanity, daring to expose their insecurities and connecting with the value people hold both intrinsically and in excess of the 2nd amendment. An amendment that was written for the safety of those living in treacherous times in the likelihood that the young new nation would survive IF ONLY they were able to defend that new nation.
I say, who will defend Christina Taylor Green? Who will defend those who are law-abiding, peace-loving citizens from those with easy access to unimaginably powerful weapons? Will this child of peace and curiosity be remembered? If so, by whom? For it is by whom that matters when it comes to peace. Peace in Tucson, peace in Arizona, peace in this nation and all over the world."
