Of opening cans of worms and marriage equality

I’m going to open up a can of worms – I know it. I don’t know how else to begin this post other by saying some of you will be offended, some of you will think I’m wrong and some of you will think I’m disgusting for holding this opinion. And that’s fine. You are entitled to your opinion as much as I’m entitled to mine.

Today’s blog post is about an overwhelming topic in the media because of the United States’ court proceedings – gay marriage/marriage equality.

So as most of you know Prop 8 was brought before the court yesterday in a case that moves to legalize gay marriage (henceforth referred to as marriage, gettin’ hitched, tyin the knot or shackling oneself to the old ball and chain) which will be announced towards the end of June. Now this movement in government is having a profound effect in not only the US but in Canada as well. So many people that I know (and thankfully so) are large supporters of marriage, regardless of religion – I also know people who don’t agree with it personally but have the common decency to not allow their opinions to rule someone else’s life.

I think the entirety of having ONE religion dictate who and who cannot be married to be incredibly flawed. I realize that at the time that these laws were created we were living in a largely different era. This law made sense when women were considered subordinate to men and skin colour dictated your worth. So it is beyond me that in this day and age when women have assumed equal status to men (for the most part – but that’s a whole different can of worms) and race does not mean you’re worthless that sexuality dictates right to marriage.

I think my biggest issue with this entire argument is that we’re setting ourselves up to never have peace by being for and against. If you think about it, the issue of marriage, outside of religion, is just personal politics. We’re not arguing that all marriages be had in a religious church – just that they be recognized as a legal union by the government. I wonder then, if there is no religious component other than the personal beliefs of the individuals against it, why is it a religious issue? This way of getting married is the same way that those who are not married in a religious ceremony get hitched, so does that mean that their union is not legally binding as well? Why stop discriminating there? What about the transgendered, those with no gender? What about those who are not married under “God” in the traditional sense?

It bothers me so incredibly much that someone’s personal religion – a choice they made (you can chose to be a Catholic, Christian, Buddhist) trumps someone’s choice of who they marry even outside of the religious ceremony.  This assumes that every single human being falls under the same religious belief as you and that’s just not true. Religious diversity is huge and while it’s an intensely personal commitment with a higher power it has given way to the right to be intolerant to others. I cannot contest your relationship with your higher power because that is discrimination, however you can impose your relationship with a higher power on me and that is protecting the sanctity of marriage for everyone?  How can someone not see the incredible flaw in that logic?

This way of thinking always excludes someone and always leaves people in the wrong. Everyone has the right to choose how they live and as much as I may not agree with the way someone lives their life I respect they have the right to make their own choices. I don’t think people realize that respecting someone’s right to make a commitment to someone for their lives does not have to go against your religious beliefs. You can still believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman based on your religion AND respect someone’s ability to have the same LEGAL rights in a union.  

Why? How? Whaaaaaat?

They are not getting married under the same conditions as you. Simple as that.

It’s time that people stop being personally offended when something “threatens their religion”. Your religion is your personal commitment with your higher power – not everyone else’s.   Don’t deny someone’s legal rights outside of religion in an attempt protect what you deem is good. 

Airlines Suck: Delta Customer Service misbooks flight and lies, causing woman to miss her brother's funeral

Airlines suck. If they’re not smashing guitars and losing ten year-olds they’re making your lives hell. I’ve only had experience with Air Canada and Porter Air, Air Canada being comparable to a root canal performed by a blind-deaf man with no fine motor skills. This story however cropped up in relation to Delta Airlines and how they single handedly made a woman miss her only sibling’s funeral.

                To summarize, the woman’s only brother died and while trying to book the flight to the funeral they were met with the following challenges:

·         No bereavement rate for their flight (totaling $821.00 per person)

·         Flight rate increasing to $1,396.00 in the time it took to speak with the first agent’s supervisor while being on hold the entire time

·         Being asked to change the date of the funeral

·         Paying $1,642.00 for flights to find out that they had been actually booked on the flight that left 4 hours before they got to the airport

·         Being directed to the Customer Call Centre, which was closed after being told they couldn’t get on their original flight

·         Speaking to the head supervisor after the last flight to their destination had left only to be told that they had turned down two first-class seats that had remained empty upon takeoff by the second agent.

·         Being told that it was their word against the other agent’s, who had inputted that that offer had been made to them.

               The couple was eventually given their money back and two $300.00 vouchers to fly Delta but had missed all of the flights and missed the funeral.

                This story hasn’t gone viral yet, but much like what happened with Progressive Insurance, more and more people are turning to the web and social media/ blogging to hold companies and corporations accountable for mistakes. From a communications perspective, I think that it’s interesting the relationship with company accountability and blogging. If you have the ability to type and get your story out there, there are literally millions of people who can make sure that it’s read and passed around.

                As a human being I think that the fact we still have that level of service is ridiculous. People are so quick to look at opportunities to make money, rather than putting people first in any position. It’s the same thing in person, you smile at someone on the street and there more than likely to tell you where to go and how to get there.

 

All information came from the blog post: The Delta Customer Service Nightmare That Made MY Mother Miss her Brother’s Funeral by Jessica Liebman

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-delta-customer-service-nightmare-that-made-my-mother-miss-her-brothers-funeral-2012-8

Fat shame, fat shaming and being body-positive.

Recently, thanks mostly in part to my fantastic Tumblr crew, I’ve been on a body love and body acceptance kick. Having a good-sized background in media, I’ve been through many a discussion on how both men and women are portrayed in the media compared to everyday life. Of course, making my opinion known on the internet has come at the price of an onslaught of anonymous hate-messages filling up my inbox. It’s with this post that I’m going to address the big ones, not out of spite, but because I feel like these are the most common things women are told when they come out and love their bodies.

You loving your body is just you trying to validate the fact you’re fat and live an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle and are too lazy to change it.

False. Yes, I could be healthier, I could forego the coffee with cream every morning and cut out all the “junk food” that I love, but I don’t. I balance that with healthy options and plenty of exercise.

There’s a huge dysmorphic mentality about a “fat” person and their ability to be healthy. It seems that everyone and their dog want to be concerned with your health when you decide that as a fat person you’re going to love your body. There is barely a connection between size and health, except in absolute extreme cases. People honestly don’t realize that you can be fat AND healthy, at the same time! (Blasphemous, I know.)

Healthy does not equal thin. Perfect examples are the Olympic weight lifters and shot putters as pictured below.

Sarah Robles - Olympic Weight Lifter

 

 A perfect medley of Olympic body types.

 

These are not people that live sedentary, lazy lives. They are athletes! I’m not promoting unhealthy lifestyles by loving my body. I’m promoting the fact that ANYONE can be healthy. You can’t fat-shame someone into believing their unhealthy because they jiggle a little more than society deems acceptable.

People like you, accepting yourself as fat are contributing to the obesity epidemic.

                Ha! Yes, I agree there is an obesity epidemic currently and we can all strive to be healthier, regardless of body type but loving your body DOES NOT promote obesity.

                Obesity is measured through the BMI (Body Mass Index) chart that charts what your weight should be based on height and corresponding weight. Every height has a weight-range that indicates healthy, overweight and obese weights. The greatest part of that, is at 5’6 my top “healthy” weight should be 120-150lbs. At my healthiest, with daily workouts, modified diet, and three-times weekly horseback riding lessons I was not in this “healthy” weight. Meaning, that I will live the rest of my life either overweight or obese according to this chart, no matter how “healthy” I am. I believe that we need to look at a more complex way of measuring health and obesity than just this, because there are plenty, PLENTY of healthy obese and overweight people who happen to not be 6’8 to justify their weight.

 

People out there think you’re sexy, stop complaining

                Why thank you, I’m glad there are people out there that think I look good, I think I look good. Saying that, I’m not an object. I’m not spouting body-positivity so that boys/girls can look at me and think I’m sexy, I’m doing it so that I can hopefully empower women and men to love their bodies, despite their shape and what society deems of it.

                Being positive about your body image isn’t about looking for people who think you’re gorgeous enough to sleep with or have sex. This is not what this is about. I’m not looking for people to want to be with me based solely on the fact that I think I look great.

You fat people out there are shaming skinny women into hating their bodies for not having curves

                I agree that this is happening, and I DO NOT agree with it. The purpose of (and I can only speak for myself) body positivity is loving your body in WHATEVER shape that it comes in. Tall, short, thin, fat, straight or curvy. Body shaming as a whole needs to end, in saying that, to be considered a plus-sized women it’s my experience that you have to fight more to be allowed to love your body. Society is more accepting of “thin”, pretty women; curvy is starting to come back into the swing of things, but media and advertising still stresses that to be desired by “the perfect” man, you need to be thin.

                To be big and confident you need to fight twice as hard and face all of the advertising that just isn’t targeted to you. Who doesn’t read a magazine and love the clothes that are shown in there? Too bad as a bigger person you know none of it is being made for you.

                Body-shaming is a practice that society needs to stop. People are not meant to be all the same. We’re human, we’re unique, we’re not all modeled after the one “ideal” image.

I support and love curvy women, but only the hot and pretty ones that are all confident in themselves

                This is why so many fat women have such low self-esteem, there’s even a set of guidelines that you need to meet to be considered beautiful when you are bigger. People do have  a personal preference as to what they think constitutes attractive, I agree 100% that one person can have the choice to not find people 100% attractive all the time. It all comes down to personal taste, BUT, do not make yourself “body-positive” if you’re going to only accept the bigger women you think should be allowed to love themselves. If you’re abiding by that thought process you are only feeding into exactly what society on a whole is doing.

                Check your thinking, see who it affects and don’t label yourself as body-positive unless you truly are body positive.

You’re only body positive because you’re fat.

                I am fat, and if I wasn’t I would still be saying the exact same thing. Instead of being picked on in school for being thin, I was made fun of for being fat. That’s the background and the experience that I bring to the discussion, but I know people who are on the other end of the ridicule as well. I’m not bod-positive because I want people to accept me, I’m body positive because I know how a negative body image affects people of any size. You can call my fat and stupid and a lazy-ass if you would like, but I will continue to state my thoughts about body-shame.

                Nobody should ever have to feel bad about the way they look and someone’s personal health should not be a strangers concern solely based on the way that their body is shaped. To give context, I was messaged by a man in the US who “lifts weights and does cardio everyday” therefore “is an expert on what being healthy looks like”, enough of an expert to know that I’m fat and super unhealthy masquerading around as confident when I should just be ashamed. I know I’m not the only one who is verbally attacked by people like this and to all of them I say:

A) You are not my doctor, you have never had access to my medical records or health records. You do not know how healthy I am or am not. Your “concern” is misplaced ignorance that exists to validate your own personal body-image issues. Anyone who is confident in themselves is confident regardless of what other people look like. True confidence comes from not needing to bring other people down because they don’t look like you.

B) You are not an expert on health because you work out every day. I also work out every day and I am no more an expert than the next person who works out daily. Your fitness schedule does not dictate your ability to tell me what I am.

C) I am fat. Thank you for pointing that out, I’m also healthy and confident. Human beings  are complex and multi-faceted with layers. To quote a rather wise ogre, “Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers” Swap out ogres for humans and there ya go! (Shrek, 2001)

D) Cinderella, the only person masquerading confidence is the man who justifies his health and good looks on the fact that he isn’t fat.

Progressive doesn't pay up but ponies up to defend other driver to avoid paying out policy

                I follow this fantastic Twitter account that takes all of the daily Public Relations (PR) fails and posts them. The story that caught my eye today is written by Louis Peitzman for Gawker, in which Progressive Insurance defended a negligent driver who had killed a woman under Progressive coverage.

                So the story starts out, that in June 2012 Katie Fisher was killed in a car accident by an underinsured driver (, a driver whose insurance isn’t able to pay the affected party when liable,) which left Progressive (her insurance company) liable to pay out the difference in the plan to her family as she was covered in case of underinsured drivers.

                After Progressive refused to pay out the rest of the claim, Fisher’s parents tried to take Progressive to court to find out that in Maryland, US , you cannot legally take an insurance company to court for refusing to pay you out. In short, they had to sue the other driver. It was a shock to the family that on the day of the trial the other driver was being defended by Progressive’s legal team.

                Katie’s brother, Matt Fisher, wrote in a post on Tumblr, “If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.” After being called out via Twitter by many people Progressive opted to respond to every Tweet, the exact same way. With a fake, robotic sounding, half-hearted apology that instead of expressing remorse – reinforced the fact that they felt they did nothing wrong. Tweet below”

“This is a tragic case, and our sympathies go out to Mr. Fisher and his family for the pain they've had to endure. We fully investigated this claim and relevant background, and feel we properly handled the claim within our contractual obligations. Again, this is a tragic situation, and we're sorry for everything Mr. Fisher and his family have gone through.”
- Progessive Twitter

I’m not a PR expert, having just really started in this field professional I can’t boast an in-depth knowledge of the communications world, but I can provide an opinion. I think that it’s in such poor taste to do what Progressive did to the Fisher family. An insurance company relies on trust, trust that as a company they will support you and be there for you. It’s not a little known fact that insurance companies hate paying out policies and will fight tooth and nail to keep from doing it, but to go as far as representing the other driver in a court case to avoid paying a policy? Are you kidding me? Instead of being on damage control, the company takes this heartless, robotic approach supplying half-hearted sympathy and then a statement basically saying “,but we aren’t in the wrong.”

Nothing goes better than not giving a crap than Flo's

smiling face!

                From a consumer standpoint, I think it’s incredibly hard to put faith in a company that will try so hard to get out of paying a policy that they will represent a negligent driver just in the hopes that it won’t have to pay. From a PR standpoint, I think that this robotic reply to angry and upset Tweets is only company damaging. At this point in time, they’ve been found accountable and instead of sucking up their pride and admitting to their mistakes and acting human, they opt to become regurgitated text on a feed. You can relate to this the same way people having an issue relate to automated phone services. You just want to speak to a real human being-and-for-the-thirteenth-time-NO-my-name-is-not-Kaylorr-Usse. Besides making us feel completely inadequate about being able to speak, people need a human connection and need to feel cared for.

                We also look for companies to own up to mistakes, yes it’s bad press for a while, but when you are able to admit mistakes it makes you look a lot better in the long run. Progressive has made a stance that they did nothing wrong, and specifically in this instance making a family suffer financial and emotional burden after already losing their daughter.

                I think that other companies should take note on what not to do from Progressive. So much so that there can be a little “how not to treat people like crap” guidebook from this tragedy:

·         Don’t flat out refuse to pay out a policy and expect no retaliation

·         Don’t try to settle outside of court at an insultingly low amount

·         Don’t go in supporting the driver who caused the death of your Progressive customer in front of that customer’s family – that one should be rather obvious

·         Don’t say nothing about after being held accountable

·         Don’t tweet the same robotic dribble to everyone who Tweets you about this incident. They’re people looking for reassurance and accountability- saying you haven’t done anything wrong but you’re sorry for the family’s loss means nothing…especially retweeted upteen times.

The original Tumblr post by Matt Fisher can be found here:
http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29338478278/my-sister-paid-progressive-insurance-to-defend-her

The Gawker article by Louis Peitzman can be found here:

http://gawker.com/5934436/comedian-calls-out-progressive-for-defending-his-sisters-killer-progressive-responds-in-heartless-robot-fashion

Life update- freaking out, caffeine and freaking out some more

Today I started thinking about something today. Something so huge I don't think there's a place in the universe to tuck it away.

After I got a much needed cup of coffee, I started to go through my graphic design work and think about my future...it didn't take me long to go and get another coffee.

As some of you may know I'm entering my fourth and final year of my degree and diploma program. By the end of these 8 months I will be a bonafide graduated adult. With a fancy piece of paper that is supposed to convince people to hire me so I can pay all my adult bills.

OhdeargodwhendidthisbecomearealthingandwhencanIgobacktohighschool.

Coming out of high school I was excited to get my life going, to get my adult life started, move out of my parents house and break into the real world on my own. I entered University trying to by phone- attach myself to my then-boyfriends hip as we made it through University. We didn't as it turns out, make it through University; this also marked a huge low point for me.  I was alone  at school with nobody I knew and the love of my life had decided some other girl was worth occupying time for the last two months of us dating. Graceful and full of poise I was not. 

I came back for my second year determined to make up for all the time I spent locked in my room Skyping my ex. So I became an RA. I would just like to point out, "how to become an awesome college resident everyone loves," does not include becoming an RA. In fact, it's the opposite. Telling drunk peers to stop drinking and vomiting and playing drinking games has you labelled the college narc instead of the cool person. Even though I hardly slept and got cussed at almost once a shift that job let me find myself. I'm one of those people that when I date I just throw myself completely into the person I'm with. I lose large bits of myself trying to make the other person happy. I ended up gaining a lot of weight in this relationship and relied heavily on this boy to validate my existence. The RA job taught me that nobody is going to make you feel better about yourself but you sometimes. There were days where I was being called every degrading name in the book by bullies I thought I'd escaped from in high school. They found every weak spot like it was a giant target with flashing lights- and they had fucking fantastic aim.  There was a moment where I remember just standing there thinking, "I can cry, I can walk away and just go back to my room and cry and write this up tomorrow." I didn't. For a very long time I realized I had this impermeable layer around my feelings and my heart. This asshat couldn't get in. 

I loved that feeling so much, I did it again for another year. This year was different. I made closer friends but I also burnt out about a quarter of the way in. I got sick often and I was normally in some kind of emotional turmoil. I was a bundle of joy, I can assure you. Whether it was the food or the added stress of the job I just wasn't functioning well. My good friend Kevin can attest to this, my Achilles heel is asking for help. I hate it, loathe it. I'd rather have a root canal done by a blind drunk who can't speak English than ask for help. I'm not exaggerating either. I went through bouts of not eating, sleeping or drinking anything and just scraped by. I've never done that in my entire life. 

So I made the decision to get my own apartment. It's my space, my perfect space. I applied for this awesome internship that I never in a million years thought I'd get and mentally prepared for another summer in Timmins. Then I got the job/ internship. I've been doing my future career for the entire summer and will continue into December and then after that I'm not sure. That doesn't scare my. I don't mind odd jobs to pay the bills, it's after that terrifies me.

Where am I going to work? Where am I going to live? I've toyed with the idea of going abroad and trying to get work in Europe but I have the cat and guinea pigs - can you even fly with guinea pigs? - and my family is all in Canada. Do I live in northern Ontario or southern Ontario. I've always lived in the north but could I make the change to down here? What about out West? Wait, could I afford to live out West....Scratch that. What about the USA there's lots of jobs there. Oh God but where the heck would I live...I think I could probably fit in in Texas or Alabama...

That's just where my brain started. I started thinking about what would happen right when I graduated. When do you start applying for career jobs? Am I really going to do the cap and gown photos again? I'm going to have to move out of this apartment...and it was such a pain in the ass to move in... I remember thinking back to high school and the drama that we had there. It wasn't any less real but compared to now...ah. I'm only 21, I know I have a lot of time left - unless a bus or wayward bullet gets me - and already family friends are starting to ask about boyfriends and clocks ticking. My clock doesn't tick, it's digital and boyfriends? Let's work on one of those and then we'll talk?

Needless to say I did a good job of terrifying myself about the future and becoming a real adult, I know a lot of you will say that I've got it good and not to worry about it "what is meant to happen will happen," to that I say: What if what's meant to happen is a 47 year old spinster who owns a lot of cats who cries herself to sleep over her degree and diploma every day under a mountain of student debt? 

That last bit was a little melodramatic, I apologize. I think that's a good note to leave this on...that and the cat has made it apparent it's le bedtime. Now. 

Night all!

Look! Look! Guinea pigs! Ophy (brown) and Gatsby (foofy one)

Bowyn 

US pastor thinks children raised in same-sex marriages need to be kidnapped to "save" them.

                Pursuing a degree in media, specifically Public Relations, nothing much surprises me about people nowadays; saying that, this surprised me. An American pastor, Bryan Fischer, is arguing that children from same-sex households should be kidnapped and an underground railroad set up to “free them.” Fischer likened this practice to being needed as it was to “freeing slaves.”

                I resisted the urge to whack my head off my desk a few times and read through the article to find out as much information as possible. Fischer is a spokesperson for the American Family Association (the same one that Chick-Fil-A*** CEO Dan Cathy stated he supported,) where he is their director of Issue Management. Fischer tweeted, “we need an underground railroad to deliver innocent children.”

                Where does this obviously well thought argument come from? Robert Oscar Lopez apparently posted on a right-wing website blaming growing up in a same-sex household the reason for his lack of social skills, trouble fitting in at work and making it difficult for him to have a relationship with a woman. I’m going to bite my tongue here and say that I highly doubt that that’s the reason he’s decided he’s so flawed as a human being. Yes, upbringing does play a part in the way you are as an adult, but the fact that he’s blaming his moms for the reason he is awkward is absurd. There’s no mention of loving them or thanking for them for raising him, it’s “you’re gay, you made me weird.”

                My views on marriage are very simple: you don’t want gay marriage, don’t get gay married. I am straight; I want to have a traditional wedding in a church. Just because I am making the personal decision to marry a man does not mean that I achieve this divine right to dictate how the rest of the world will get married! It bothers me that people want to inject themselves into the personal lives of everyone else as if we’re all in an episode of Big Brother. Life is reality, not reality TV.  I respect that Mr. Fischer has the right to have an opinion about marriage and how he thinks that upbringing affects children, but when you’re talking about “saving” innocent children as if they’re shackled in a basement in a same-sex couples house, that’s ridiculous. Where there is one man blaming his family structure for his social awkwardness there are millions of other men and women who say it has made them stronger.

                By the very statistics of “traditional” marriage you can attest it can be just as harmful to a child. Most marriages end in divorce, that’s a fact. I’m not saying that marriage between a man and a woman is flawed for that reason but you can’t look at “traditional” marriage as this completely flawless sentient being, it never has been. Marriages are incorporate individuals, who are just that, individual. The negatives that are being created is the shame that is being dumped on same-sex family children by these extreme religious groups, stating they’re “doing it for their own good.” You can’t teach a child to hate his/her parent because their lifestyle is different than yours, nor should you shame them into a corner because that’s how they’re growing up. Children are impressionable, as kids we just want to fit in; whether it’s having the newest toys or wearing the coolest clothes; we want acceptance. Creating these ignorant little boxes where “family” needs to fit in corrupts the very nature of a family.

                It shouldn’t need to be this overstated but every person has the right to the lifestyle they choose. Mr. Fischer has the right to think marriage is between a man and a woman only just as much as I have to the right to think people can marry who they want. A family is a complex being, it doesn’t live and breathe in black and white; family is whatever you feel it is. Hold onto your beliefs and keep them close, but don’t be so ignorant as to ram them down the throats of anyone who thinks a little differently.

Article and quotes were taken from the Sun News article “US pastor advocates abducting children from gay homes” by QMI Agency

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/archives/sunnews/world/2012/08/20120809-100520.html

Bryan Fischer’s Twitter can be found here:

https://twitter.com/BryanJFischer

***Note: Chick-Fil-A has not had any direct correlation to Mr. Fischer's position or comments, they are at this point, unrelated instances.

CBC needs to get their act together- article on Colorado shooting and gun laws in Canada and US

This is going to be a two-part article; the first being the choice of words for the article I read’s title and then my opinion about the matter as it pertains to Canada.

First off, I read the CBC News article by Meagan Fitzpatrick and Jon Hembrey and immediately was put off. The title, “Guns used in Colorado theatre shooting legal in Canada,” is so misrepresentative of this article. This title starts of putting Canada’s gun laws in a negative light, making it seem like any old person could just walk in and buy these guns; which is not the case. I’ve been really disappointed in CBC News for the past few days with poorly written headlines just to gain readership and not indicative of the actual story.

Now a bit of background before I get into what I think; yes, all of these firearms are legal to be purchased in Canada, but you need to be fully licensed, and for some of the firearms require further licensing and courses to acquire.

Now for my opinion; I know I am biased first of all, I have been hunting since I was little and completed my firearms licensing when I was 12; growing up in northern Ontario it’s part of the way of life. Hunting is something I love to do and I’ve always grown up respecting guns for what they are, not toys or something you use for games, but tools intended for a specific purpose.  

I think that Canada is just right with their licensing for firearms. Yes, I believe that an 18 year old should be able to purchase a firearm because where I am from, they’re used for what they were made for, hunting. I think that you should be required to take the courses needed for your firearms license, courses designed to teach to you safely use your firearm and you should fail those courses if you can’t show you’re responsible enough.  Obviously when I passed my licensing at the age of 12 I was under the supervision of a fully licensed adult if I was holding a firearm, but to me that’s not unreasonable. The long-gun registry being abolished is a relief to the people that use their guns for hunting purposes and I’m glad about that decision.

I realize that not everyone feels this way and I’m aware that not everyone has grown up with the lifestyle or exposure to firearms that I’ve had. There are sick people in the world who will be able to purchase firearms, whether through legal or illegal means. That will never change, because our systems are run by people and people make mistakes. Gun violence will always exist, it has since the invention of firearms. I think that the most that should be done is further education, having gun safety worked into school curriculums; I realize that parents don’t want their kids learning about guns in school, but when you learn at a young age to respect something it sticks with you. Learning the capabilities of firearms and why you need to respect them is going to lead to a generation of people who know how to properly treat these things and what they can do.

Whether you make guns almost impossible to get by cracking down on the licensing there will always be a black market for firearms. Someone will always sell someone these guns. Speaking as an avid hunter, I don’t think it’s fair to make us who use firearms for hunting jump through hoops on one leg while juggling ping-pong balls that are in flames to just to be able to go hunting.

Coming full circle, I don’t really want to talk about the man who committed the act of gun-violence in Colorado, he’s a terribly sick individual and that’s it. I feel very deeply for all the families and victims involved in this shooting, there is no rhyme or reason for why this happened. I believe that forcing some massive debate over the availability of guns is useless, just because some wacko with a gun used them does not mean that every single person who buys a gun will.

I can’t speak for the gun laws in the USA because I don’t know them well enough to have an opinion on them, but in Canada I am alright with our gun laws. They require you to be certified, educated and tested before you can acquire your gun. Legal establishments that sell firearms (for the most part) check your licensing and certification before selling you one and you have to abide by strict rules while in possession of a firearm. If you do not, you’re punished. Don’t blame this incident on gun laws, it falls solely on the actions of one man who happened to use firearms as his weapon of choice, it could have literally been many other things.

Information taken from article Guns used in Colorado theatre shooting legal in Canada by Meagan Fitzpatrick and Jon Hembrey