America, the Lost

I'm descended from two different Mayflower pilgrims. I love my country, but today I look around and hardly recognize it.

When I was young, there was a rumor that a gang fight was going to occur five blocks from my house. What worried people the most was that someone might have a zip gun. (You make a zip gun with wood, some kind of substitute for a barrel and something like a very strong rubber band to trigger the bullet ). We didn't worry that someone would have a real gun because kids  and most people, didn't own pistols.

Today in San Bernardino I watched police deal with the murder of 14 people and the shooting of 17 others. All the Republicans running for president want people to have access to guns.

As a commentator from CNN, remarking on the military vehicles possessed by the San Bernardino Sheriff's office, said "America is the only place where you can buy automatic weapons and armor piercing bullets, so of course you have to have these vehicles.

Horse shit. The National Rifle Association has convinced people they have a right to armor piercing bullets and AR 15's like the killers used today. We've been sold a bill of goods and I can't wait to hear the Republicans explain why we have to put up with events like San Bernardino because owning assault weapons is a God-given right. Jesus didn't want us killing each other and when the states in the Bible Belt decided not to take Syrian refugees they never asked "what would Jesus want us to do." I'm adrift in a land in which I didn't grow up. I feel like a stranger.