Survivor Saturday, Recovering From Black Friday

This was the post I would have written yesterday if the planets had aligned well enough for the internet to work properly where I stayed this weekend.

I have never gone shopping on Black Friday. I guess I just don't possess the competitive gene required to spend hours waiting in the cold to fight over some item because it's on sale. I seriously don't believe I'd do it if the items were being given away free! 

I can remember seeing all the ads for after Thanksgiving sales as a kid. This has traditionally been the time the best sales were held for decades, starting with Macy's in 1924. The name "Black Friday" was first used in 1961 by Philadelphia police and it was called that because of the traffic jams and increased pedestrian traffic associated with the start of the holiday shopping season. It took a while to spread but by the 80's it was being used across the country. Many merchants however were adverse to the negative connotation of the name and tried unsuccessfully to change it. Eventually the idea that this was when merchants started making more money thereby being "in the black" financially and that version seems to have stuck. 

Somewhere along the line things got crazy. I can't say if the deals just got better, if the media just gave it more attention or if it was because the stores themselves manipulated the sales hours to create more urgency. Maybe people just became more primitive, who knows?  What I do know is that around the mid-2000's Black Friday shopping became a sometimes violent contact sport. How does the thought of saving some money cause people to absolutely lose their minds?

A few examples:

Tallahassee, FL - 2 people shot over a parking space

San Antonio, TX - a guy punches someone to get into the front of the line so another guy   with a permit to carry a concealed weapon pulls his gun

Holland Township, MI - 2 shoplifters pulled a gun on the clerk who spotted them

Kentwood, MI - gang fight at a mall leads to pepper spray being used 

Covington, WA - apparently intoxicated 71 yr old runs down 2 people in a parking lot

Every state - robberies of people in parking lots and countless fights that haven't been widely reported by the media

And the TOTAL IDIOT of the year award goes to a man in Springfield, MA who left his girlfriend's 2 yr old child in the car while he shopped for a TV. The child was spotted and police broke into the car and had him sent to the hospital as a precaution. Meanwhile the guy was tracked down AT HOME! He said he lost the boy while shopping, panicked and called someone else for a ride. Notice he called someone for a ride; he did not call the police, or someone to help him find the child, not even the child's mother who was at work. Just what the hell did he plan on telling her when she got home?!!!

At least this year, at least as far as I can tell, no one has died. No employees or shoppers were trampled to death like the guy in Long Island, NY in 2008. No pregnant women have miscarried such as the one who was in the same crowd. No fathers shot each other to death, in front of their kids, like happened in Palm Desert, CA on that very same day.

Now, I am not Catholic. I am not really of any organized religion, but to me Black Friday seems to embody most of the 7 deadly sins: greed, envy, gluttony, and wrath for sure, probably a little lust and pride are also in the mix. If you think about it sloth fits in there too. Because if you do your research and take the time to really look, deals can be found all year long without putting your safety at risk.

I hope your shopping was problem free and you got all the deals you wanted.

Annie Get Your Gun

Every so often guns become the topic of the moment in the national media. It popped up in the presidential campaign, it comes up every time there is a sensationalized shooting. There are horror stories and the true anguished pleas of victims of gun violence or, more commonly, from their surviving families. It tugs at the heart and makes us all want to solve the problem so no one has to face this type of tragedy again. The answer on most people's lips: gun control!

Now where I come from and when I grew up, gun control simply meant self-control. Every one had a gun for hunting or protection. Of course, that protection was mostly from wild animals or dangerous snakes. Occasionally there would be other uses as well like putting down an injured animal, it was a farm after all.  I have seen Mom use a 22 caliber rifle to shoot mistletoe out of a tree for Christmas decorations. There was also that time that my Grandmother used a 12 gauge shotgun as a pesticide but that's another story!

So, as I said, guns were everywhere. They weren't locked in gun cabinets and didn't have trigger locks.They were fully assembled, loaded and located where they could quickly be grabbed if needed. Mom had her rifle standing by the head of her bed for as long as I can remember. Children learned early on what guns could do by seeing them used. We also knew that if the gun didn't kill us, our parents would if we touched the gun. Unless of course we were sent to get it for some reason, which was not an unusual occurrence. Besides, most of the kids I knew didn't need to bother with their parent's guns, they had their own. Boys, and many girls, got  hunting rifles as soon as they were big enough and strong enough to hold one properly. Training wasn't done by the NRA, gun use and safety were ingrained on you from time you learned to walk. I never feared guns, I did however have a healthy respect for their power. 

Unfortunately, this was a long time ago. It was a time when people hadn't yet  progressed from shooting up mailboxes and street signs to shooting up each other in schools and movie theaters. On the two occasions my Mom ever picked up her gun against someone else, it was never fired. 

The first time I was there. It was the middle of the night and we all heard a window being opened in the dining room. Mom got her rifle, told my brother and me to stay back and crept into the room, lights still out. With the rifle pointed at the intruder she firmly demanded they identify themselves, no answer. She did this 2 or 3 more times and when an arm came through the window and reached out for one of the chairs, she flipped the lights on. It was my father, drunk and locked out due to losing his key. Fear and panic could have caused this to be one of those stories touted by hardcore gun control enthusiasts for banning weapons. However, common sense was used instead of the gun.

The other time was when Mom was working at a motel. She lived on-site and her bedroom was right off the office. She again heard the sounds of someone breaking in. She  got her gun and aimed it waist level at the door knowing the intruder was on the other side. She yelled a warning to the effect of, "I have a gun, get out". Apparently he didn't believe her or something and shoved through the door. Upon seeing her standing there with a rifle pointed at his privates, he turned and ran. No shots were fired or needed to accomplish the goal of self protection. I have no doubt in my mind however, that had he continued to advance he would have left there in a body bag. The point is, she used reason and common sense to handle the situation. She was confident in her abilities because she had been around guns her entire life and knew what she was doing. I truly believe the only reason she doesn't have one now is that the nursing home she lives in won't allow it.

I understand that the gun related death rates in urban and rural areas are roughly the same, only for different reasons. Today the rural areas have a high number of accidental shootings and sadly, a large number of suicides. In the urban areas, crime is more commonly the cause of gun deaths. But can we truly blame the guns and gun marketers? No, I don't feel we can paint over the issue with such a broad brush. 

As for the accidental shootings, some of them are related to improper handling of firearms when cleaning them. Some are simply due to human error and others, at the risk of sounding callous, are due to stupidity plain and simple. We all know that drinking and driving don't mix, well neither do drinking and firing weapons. People use guns recklessly sometimes. As previously stated, self-control and better education on gun safety could lower this percentage of gun deaths.

Suicides are a tragic outcome of the pressures people are facing in the world as it is today. It is horrific and heart-wrenching but it won't be prevented by making guns less available. Those intent on dying will find another way. Only by better outreach and focus on each other will these numbers be lowered. Physicians, teachers, parents and friends, these are the first line of defense in preventing suicide. 

Of course, should the National Instant Criminal Background Check System actually be fully utilized and if that database actually included disqualifying mental health records, it would be a means of finding a few of these poor souls before it was too late. But it isn't required in private sales, only for federally licensed gun dealers, and most of the disqualifying mental health histories never make it to the database in the first place.

Now for the big one, crime. I strongly believe that people buying guns should have to pass a criminal background check such as the NICS system above, whether from a gun shop or an individual. I believe private individuals selling a weapon should have to maintain records of when and to whom a gun is sold and have a limit on how many guns they can sell in a certain time-frame  I believe a few days waiting period is appropriate. And I believe stronger penalties for crimes committed with guns should be levied. Making it more difficult to obtain the guns will help.

We will never get rid of all gun violence and related crimes or gun deaths as long as there are humans breathing the air on this planet. That ship sailed the day guns were invented. To do that would require searching every inch of the earth and destroying every gun ever made, sounds a little "Twilight Zone" to me. What we need to strive for is an increased caution and responsibility on the part of every gun owner and every seller of guns. It will never stop it all together but it would certainly make a difference.