The topic of video games is a very hot one, I am aware. Both sides of the isle are split among themselves on the influence they have on young minds and what should be done about them. But I'm having a tough time with countering one group saying to ban guns with another group saying to ban video games. I'm not a big fan of banning things. Bans mean less freedom. 

Right now, I'm listening to a lot of people talk about how parents need to take an active roll, discipline their children, raise them to respect life, etc., and then in the same breath forgetting parents all together when it comes to video games. 

When you make the decision to have a child, that decision brings a lot of responsibility and sacrifice. It means giving of yourself to make a life for your child, putting in long, thankless hours to raise that child, and doing a heck of a lot of work. A child is not a decision to be made because your parents are badgering you to give them grandkids, or because society says you should have kids, or because you get extra perks at work or on your taxes or whatever. You should be having a kid because you want one and are ready to raise one. 

And raising a child means that sometimes you are going to anger that kid. Too bad for the kid. If your kid is playing violent video games, that is on you, the parent. Video games cost between $50 - $60 a piece, and the consoles themselves are astronomically priced. Your child is not buying those on their own. You bought them. The games are rated. They give a pretty good description on the back panel. And, frankly, there are a ton of really good games out there that are age appropriate and fun to play. If your kid is Lego Batman age, maybe Call of Duty is the wrong purchase. 

Oh, your kid might be playing them at the houses of friends who's parents buy them anyway? That's your responsibility to know. You should know what activities are taking place at friends' houses, and you should be in touch with the parents. 

This is actually doable. We had video games when I was kid. The Nintendo system was all the rage - you know, the one where you had to blow in the cartridges and beat the console to get it to work? - and I had one after spending an entire year begging my parents endlessly until the Christmas morning where it showed up under the tree. I played a lot of Super Mario Bros. and soccer games. My mother bought the games, and she wasn't afraid to say no if I chose something that was not appropriate. She let me scream and yell, too. But she held firm. 

And I've noticed in my town that the kids don't seem to act as we assume the norm is today. I hear people complain that kids don't play outside anymore. Well, then apparently my state is bizarre, because you can't drive anywhere without kids in backyards, front yards, or parks. Spring is coming, and I know full well that within days the kids will be running through our housing development in a herd, playing basketball in driveways, riding their bikes and scooters, and walking their family dogs around proudly. Just yesterday I watched six of the neighborhood kids playing hopscotch in one of the driveways. It is on you, as a parent, to usher your child outdoors. 

So, let's recap. Stop buying your kids violent video games. Get your kids outside and into sporting activities after school (every area has a big sport. Where I grew up, it was soccer. Where I live now it is swimming). Engage your own child and know what they have, what they are doing, and what they do while inside other people's homes. 

And don't expect everyone else to give up what they like because you refuse to do this with your own kids. Banning stuff always means less freedom, so I very rarely support banning stuff. And I'm sorry, but I'm not giving up my adult rated video games because you can't say no to your child. 

Among everything else going on in the gun world these days, another hot topic is arming teachers. Trump suggested it right after the Parkland shooting, and it began a very heated debate among the people. To date, I haven't touched on it much, but I want to go ahead and do that. 

You might be surprised to hear I don't support the suggestions put forth for arming teachers. Why? Because I believe it would a lot easier and much more stream lined if we just removed the laws that prevent them from doing so in the first place. 

You have to remember, with the leftists and gun grabbers, they have an all or none mentality. They aren't hearing what arming teachers actually means. They keep going on and on about how they don't want to carry a gun and they don't want teachers to be armed... the thing is, the suggestions put forth have never suggested forcing any teacher to carry a gun. It's voluntary, and only those who want to can. Meaning if you don't want to be armed you don't have to be. 

And leftists gun grabbers are using the same arguments here that they used against concealed carry in general, the same ideas that never panned out. "THERE WILL BE BLOOD IN THE STREETS!" Of course everyone was going to shoot everyone else and the murder rate was going to skyrocket and we'd be hearing gunfire all the time, taking cover for 3/4 of our day as the public shot at each other over line cutting disputes and hatred for someone's shoes. That never happened; concealed carriers still remain one of the most law abiding groups of people in the country. But now we're saying teachers will be shooting the kids for acting out in class and the students will steal their guns and all this other stuff. The schools will be war zones! Blood pouring from the lockers! Yeah, right. 

But I think a lot of that could be overlooked by just doing away with the law preventing them instead of creating another law or loophole to allow them to. Maybe concealed carry only for the buildings or something. The government should not be paying for their training. The government should not be paying for their guns. By removing the laws, we take government out of it completely. OK, now you can carry if you have a concealed carry license and are complying with state and Federal laws. You are required to go through the same training as any other concealed carrier, and the cost burden is yours, like everyone else. Your gun is your choice and the cost burden is yours. If you don't want to carry, don't. 

However, I also support school guards. There are plenty of veterans who are out of work right now who would love a job protecting kids. They are fully trained with their weapons, they have procedure down pat, and they have training far and above anything you could ask a teacher to go through. You'd be giving these men and women a full time job that they would enjoy, and you would be getting extra out of the military training they received. I would put one at every door leading outside from a hallway or office cluster, and two roaming hallways per building. Uniform: polo shit and khakis in the school colors. 

Schools should be carrying out basic safety procedures. I recently started delivering food for an app service part time, and I deliver to several schools. And I'm noticing things. One school is locked down like Fort Knox. You aren't getting in there unless someone physically lets you in. And the people are placed away from the doors in such an way that if a nutter tried shooting through the doors, if a bullet went through, the office personnel would not be hit. Another school, however, has entrances in various areas - as well as stand alone trailer classrooms - that lead directly to classrooms. The doors are glass. There is no one in the hallways. I don't know if they are locked during school hours, and I don't know the rating on the glass, if it even has one. Each classroom has a door leading outside - also glass. Those are not locked, because I've driven by and seen them propped open during the day. This should not be. Those doors are there for quick exit during a fire, but I think they are a terrible idea. If they are there, they should be solid metal doors that remain locked at all times, and should have a fire alarm that sounds if opened. This shouldn't be a problem, considering other classrooms have bookcases in front of them anyway. So what's the use? 

I've been in a school that was evacuated due to fire (we had a stage in our gym, and the lighting system fell and caught the stage on fire). The school wasn't all ground level like these; it was four floors high with twisting hallways, long staircases, no elevators, and lots of other obstacles. We all got out fine. That's what fire drills are for. 

A big portion of the argument against doing anything safety wise in the schools is the fact that people don't want schools to be prisons. But the fact is, a lot of schools have metal detectors and police roaming the hallways. When I was high school age, our local public high school was that way. And that was in the early and mid 90s. Now, that was a rough school (note: total number of mass shootings: 0. Total number of shootings of any kind: 0). So I'm not saying every school should be like this. But doing basic things to defend students should be a no brainer. And having armed veterans is not, in fact, a bad idea. Odds are, after the first week, the kids would forget they were even there. 

And here's where honesty comes in. A lot of the problems in the schools are your little special snowflakes. We have resource officers in the schools because your little tykes can act like real buttholes sometimes. And at the end of the day, your precious little ones are spending their day cutting each other down to build themselves up. We keep hearing about what everyone else has to do. How about what you, as parents, are going to do? What are you going to do, tonight, to teach your child to not be a little piece of trash? And no, I don't want to hear about how your kid would never do anything like that. What you think and what is reality is irrelevant. You don't know what your kid is doing at school. So maybe we can work towards raising kids who learn to respect others, to respect human life, and to not treat each other like garbage so they can be "cool." Stop expecting everyone else to raise your kids, and start taking them in hand yourself. Teach them values and morals. And when you hear your kid did something to another student, discipline them. Stop chastising other parents for raising their voices to their kids or doing something to discipline them. Kids don't raise themselves. You have to raise them. They aren't an accessory, a quick way to a pay raise at work, or something you have because you are expected to. If you can't bring yourself to raise your child to be a decent human being, don't have a child. But if you do have a child, raise them. 

To the kids themselves... stop spending your time telling everyone else what they have to do to make your school safer. Take a minute away from preening in the bathroom mirror or trying to be the most popular kid in school, and realize that matters not one bit in life. Talk to the kid no one else is talking to. You don't have to become best friends with them, but say hi when you pass them in the hallway. Maybe once in a while do something like tell them you forgot to write down the homework assignment for the night and ask if they have it so you can see what you need to do for homework. Nothing too serious. Just enough that the kid doesn't feel invisible. And if you don't like someone, that's fine. Ignore them instead of torturing them. If you want your 15 minutes of fame, you have a great shot at getting it by doing something good for someone or by doing something others can't do then you do by torturing someone for an online video. And since that stuff will haunt you for the rest of your life online anyway - especially if you got your 15 minutes of fame from it - it will do you better trying to get into colleges or trying to get jobs if your 15 minutes came from something amazing instead of something showcasing your torture abilities. No college and no hiring company wants a butthole around. 

Now I know, no one wants blame bullying or any of that stuff for these shootings. And that's fine, you can live in a dream land where these things happen out of thin air and everyone just randomly snaps for no reason. But the fact of the matter is that a simple hi once in a while can snap someone out of their own dreamland of mass killing. It gives them some fleeting hope that maybe someone actually sees them and they aren't as worthless as they think they are. Yeah, I believe these shooters have mental issues. That's sort of obvious. But people who are unstable can be set off. You can, in fact, make a big difference with people like that by doing simple things. 

Anyway, these are just some ways to make schools safer. The most important ways being veterans protecting our kids and removing laws that keep teachers defenseless. If teachers want to be armed, they should able to do so, on their own dime. If they don't want to to be armed, that, too, should be their choice. And it is high time schools get their acts together and start being serious about school security. That's actual school safety. And it doesn't violate anyone's constitutional rights. 

I read this article this morning and started thinking. As a former smoker, I watched the progression of smoking laws in that area. And I found the article profound for more than the smoking laws. This is how we outlaw things in the USA - in pieces. 

Lately, bump stocks for rifles have been back in the news, with Trump coming out hard against them. The media regularly states, mockingly, that people who disagree with the ban see it as a "slippery slope." Because how laughable is that, right?

Not very. It's the truth. And we have a lot of things to point to to prove it. I could point out that the UK successfully got rid of guns and they are now moving on to knives, because as I have been stating for years, it's never enough. These types don't stop to soak in a victory, they move on to the next thing they want banned "for your own good." And they will never stop. 

​But instead, let's look at what NY is doing with smoking. Of course, you have "the children" being used as an excuse, because literally 4 things on Earth right now won't kill your kids and we have to ban everything else. Kids born after 1990 are all apparently made from glass and paper and are so much more emotionally sensitive than generations before them. So every law they want to pass that restricts any form of freedom is, of course, in the name of children. Besides abortion. You can have one if you want, that's cool.

​NY wants smoking banned. Period. But the outrage would be amazing, and a lot of people would be voted out of office. There are still a lot of smokers out there, and with vapers being demonized along with them, you can triple the number of people being outraged. So we do it in pieces.

Start raising the taxes. Currently, a pack of smokes in NY can cost upwards of $13. That's a pack of 20 cigarettes. Most of that cost is going to the government so they can buy $58,000 toilet seats or ensure their hallways have real marble on the floors and walls, with the extra money is for getting it up on the ceiling, too, and maybe some gold gilding. You can bet it isn't actually going back to the community for education or anything like that. The kids are only useful for agenda reasons, after all. 

Then ban smoking indoors. Ban smoking in certain places, like parks. Then ban smoking where kids are present. Ban smoking in hotels. Cops can approach you to inspect your cigarette packs to ensure you have the stamp on them that says you bought them in state and paid the tax. Now, if you are walking and smoking you can be fined $50. At some point they'll ban smoking in rental properties, which means if you live in an apartment in NY you won't be allowed to smoke there. They'll move to banning smoking in cars because, after all, if your smoke is causing this politician to have some kind of demonic fit just by being 200 feet behind a smoker on the street, he's really going to have issues with driving smokers who are releasing their demons over many blocks! They'll keep enacting more and more laws about where you can't smoke and what you can't be doing while smoking until you literally will not be able to smoke in the state unless you are on a property that is owned by you - meaning the mortgage is paid off - and it is in some remote area where your nearest neighbor is a mile away. Then they can say they didn't actually ban smoking. You can still smoke. You can smoke all you want! Just follow these 85,000 pages of laws. 

You end up with people being forced to behave as the government wants them to, and you also create a black market. We all know about loosies. Eric Garner could tell you about loosies if he was still alive. No, that isn't a shot at the cops. But let's face it. He was approached by the cops for selling black market individual cigarettes (loosies), which is against the law (because the state doesn't make money off of it), a crime that was created by these very laws meant to ban cigarettes in pieces. People get arrested for selling loosies all the time. They get arrested for smuggling cigarettes from out of state all the time, too. NY created more crimes, and people are still smoking. 

Now we're doing it with guns. Well, we've been doing it with guns. But people don't see it. We have a constitutional right to bear arms, and a good majority of the country actually supports gun rights - regardless of what the media says, the research, polls, and studies don't support their claims - so an outright ban of all guns isn't going happen. And banning them in pieces is going to take longer. 

Full autos are banned. You can't open carry in some states, and in many states you need a license to carry concealed. In some states you really can't carry at all. In many states where carrying is legal, the cops will approach you every time they see you. In some states you can carry but the gun can't be loaded. In some states you have to pay the government to run a background check that gun stores run on rifles for free. Literally the exact same background check (the reason: revenue and the hopes that you won't bother driving out to the sheriff's department, where you have to pay for parking if you can even find it, to apply and also to pick up the permits since they need five days to complete an instant background check, during weekdays when everyone is working which means you have to take time off of work - twice - to complete the process).  

Now people are marching for a ban on "assault weapons." Because obviously banning a rifle used in a minuscule amount of gun crimes and deaths would make a huge impact, right? Once that's done, your deer hunting rifle will be deemed a "sniper rifle" and we'll start marching on Washington to have those banned. Then someone will start on handguns, probably starting with semi-autos because they can fire 800 rounds a minute or some made up horse manure like that. The revolvers will be a problem because the casings once used as evidence in crimes will be left inside the cylinder, making solving gun deaths harder. 

And we'll be standing here on the curb with a pump action shotgun that holds three rounds and a single shot 22 LR bolt action wondering what the heck happened. They didn't ban all guns, after all. You can still have fun at the range with that single shot 22 LR, and the shotgun is great for home defense, and you can hunt with it! Isn't your government benevolent?! 

This is a wild ride. I know people are probably expecting me to talk about the March for Less Freedom in Washington, D.C. today, but I'm actually going to skip that. They have a Constitutional right to protest until they are blue in the face. I'm a little ticked off at the media coverage, since there are protests and rallies there every day and none of those get coverage, but this one needed nonstop coverage and live feeds, but whatever. Also, for those who still don't know... no, the kids didn't organize the protest like the media tells you. The Women's March did, and it isn't a hidden secret. It's on all their marketing information. 

What I do want to discuss is the Omnibus bill that Trump threatened to veto and then signed. It was a pork filled disaster that should have been set on fire on live TV before forcing them all back in a room to rewrite the damn thing. It isn't an official budget, because our government is apparently completely incapable of coming up with an actual budget. But it is also so fiscally irresponsible it should make everyone sick. 

At this point, no breaks. You keep your butts in Washington, D.C. until you get your damn job done, and done right. Then you can leave. And not a minute before. 

I've taken some polls here, on Instagram, on Twitter, and on Facebook. The results are pretty even on your thoughts, with "Trump has a plan" squeezing out a narrow win. 

Personally, I think he screwed up by signing this bill. And I'm not alone. I spend most of the day in my car for work, and listen to talk radio during the week. Rush and Hannity are split on it. But I know the callers calling in to talk to Rush were not at all happy. I listened to their grievances. I listened to the people who sent me messages. I listened to the people talking all around the internet. Hopes are not high right now. 

If Trump has a plan of some kind, he better make that plan real clear sometime soon, because it sounds to me like his base is deflating. There are plenty of people coming up with their own theories as to what he's doing here, but at the end of the day, the only person who knows what the hell Trump is doing is Trump. And not being a diehard like some other folks, I am having a tough time rationalizing the signing of this thing when he could have fought for the American people instead. Seriously, we're going to fund border walls in other countries but not the one on our own border? We're funding overseas scholarships and women police? Why are we doing this? We're going $1.3 trillion deeper into debt to fund stuff in other countries while thumbing noses at the American people. We can't balance a budget. We refuse to listen to the suggestions on real ways to actually balance the budget. We're now poking China while we're in debt to them up to our ears. It should be real fun when China decides to call in their debt! And yes, they can. And yes, we'll be screwed.

The midterms are fast approaching, with most predictions being a blue wave. Yes, I know all the excuses about how the 2016 polls were wrong and all that good stuff. The fact is, polls are usually a pretty good predictor. Obviously they don't always work. But they do a lot of the time. Because people have decided polls are suddenly always wrong, the base is already not feeling powered enough to go out and vote because obviously we're going to win regardless of polls, so why bother. A lot of folks, myself included, are trying to get the base to get up and vote in the midterms because now isn't the time for complacency. But this omnibus may have made our jobs harder. 

People feel betrayed. No, not everyone. I can already see the angry comments. But a lot of folks are, in fact, feeling betrayed. How fired up are those people going to be about voting in the midterms? These are the folks who are looking at the republicans and figuring they are just going to give the dems whatever they want anyway, so what? And they're right. Our Senate and Congress are full of spineless amoebas. They scream and nod about rights and fiscal responsibility and then we get something like this omnibus. The libertarians are laughing and saying, "See? You should have voted 3rd party and should in the midterms!" But the fact is that the libertarians aren't on the ballot in most states, so no, they aren't going to win jack. They certainly aren't going to take Senate and Congress, and frankly, they wouldn't know what to do with it if they did! They can't stop fighting among themselves over their platform long enough. 

The right is in real trouble in November. In a perfect world, anyone currently holding office - and I don't care a drip who they are - would be voted out onto their butts and replaced with fresh new faces. It would be nice if average people who actually have to live with this crap were able to run for office so we could replace these pieces of trash with them. Every single person in office right now should be losing their jobs at the next election. Primary out every single one of them. Term limits should be put in place immediately. And from here out, government is no longer a career choice. You serve your term and get the hell out so you have to live with what you did like the rest of us! 

But it isn't going to happen because average people can't afford to run, the parties don't support new people, and we love to complain about our politicians so much we keep voting them back in so we can keep complaining. 

At this point, if you haven't realized your politicians - dems or repubs - don't give a single flip about you, you are a lost cause. They are there for themselves. They will blow smoke up your rear all day long to get you to vote for them, and then do whatever they want. And we'll complain. But we'll vote them right back in again. We won't hold their feet to the fire. And they know it. 

Stop making excuses for them. The omnibus was just another bad bill that got signed when it shouldn't have been. You can have as many long explanations as you want to. The fact is - we don't know what any of these people are thinking. Not really. And we're going to pay the price. The others are sitting back asking what the point is. And because the base is now deflating and the joy and confidence has been wiped out of so many, there very well may be a blue wave in November. It won't fix anything. It will make it worse. It will make it a lot worse. Nothing will get done. The dems will ramp up attempts at impeachment until Nancy Pelosi is the president or the people get so sick of it they don't vote in 2020, either (which is actually the goal). And we'll sit here scratching our heads asking what happened. We'll have a wasted two years to sit through when nothing gets done at all, we'll continue being wasteful, and we'll sit here day after day watching them poke each other in the eye without actually doing any work. Sounds like fun. 

I'm tired and I'm frustrated, and I know a lot of other people are, too. Something has to change. At some point, we need to stop letting our politicians crap on us. We need every single one of them out of office. We need to break the cycle of voting in one party and then the next and then back again, because nothing changes that way. Clear them all out in the primaries and get fresh faces in there. If we could do that, it would cost less to run for office and real people might get a shot at it. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe we could actually get something done. But we need to stand up as a country and do this together. We need to get brave, we need to swarm to the polling places on primary day, and we need to vote these idiots out of office. Get your own name on the ballot for the primaries. And vote for anyone other than an incumbent or other old face. Clear them all out, one and all. 

Like a good portion of you, I am having a tough time supporting the kids walking out. And it isn't just because they are marching against the Constitution and their own freedoms and that what they are protesting for is something I am fully against. I'm not sure these kids have any idea what they are protesting. Yes, I am sure some of them do. But a good majority of them don't. And from what I have seen, knowing what you are protesting isn't something the schools are freely encouraging the kids to do. 

These kids are being fed. I'm sure they have opinions. I'm also sure they aren't getting both sides of the story. How many of them know the statistics for school shootings? The real ones put out by organizations who clearly define mass shootings and other crimes and keep track of them, not the padded numbers offered by the media. How many know the gun laws? The actual gun laws. How many know what representatives in their state to contact? Who was the protest aimed at? What, exactly, is an AR-15? What does "semi-automatic" mean? What is the difference between an AR-15 and an M-16? What independent research have they done without a parent or teacher over their shoulder? You all have smart phones, check it out while you're on the toilet. 

I'm going to assume not much personal research was done, otherwise this young lady would have realized that shirt wasn't appropriate for an anti-gun march, considering how prevalent that is in pro-gun culture. Like, you really can't do any opposition research without finding that term. 

The other reason I believe these kids are protesting based only on their parents and teachers' thoughts is because of the overuse of buzzwords and phrases. The above sign for example. Every anti-gun protest has that exact same sign. "Common sense gun control." "Gun show loophole." "I don't want to ban all guns, but..." "I'm pro second amendment, but..." The list goes on. The signs were the same generic signs at every gun control event. This is not the sign of independent thought. This is a sign of being showed one side of the story and argument. 

The same goes for the kids who were pro-gun. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is not an original thought. It's another over used phrase that, while true, was fed to a teenager. 

However. It goes beyond that. In NC, students were basically forced to participate in the walk out because all the teachers were participating and no students could be in the classrooms alone. Therefore, all the students had to be where the teachers were. 

A young man in Ohio was suspended from school because he wanted to be a-political. He basically didn't want to take a side, and going outside for the walkout was support for gun control, but going to the common area was supporting gun rights. Instead of providing a place for kids to stay who didn't want to take sides for whatever reason, they tried to force them to take sides. 

​This is not a protest. When kids are not being presented both sides of the argument, are being suspended for not taking sides, and are being escorted away for having an opinion against gun control, that isn't a protest or students expressing themselves. That is forced dissent. These kids are being forced to protest something they don't even understand fully. 

The proper way to do this would be to encourage the kids to study both sides. Teach them how to think, not what to think. Do a report on both sides. Do a report supporting one side or arguing against one side. Heck, when I was in high school we had a public speaking team, and one of the categories you could do was called the "Lincoln-Douglas Debate." You gave the kids a topic and told them what side they were arguing - it didn't matter what side they agreed with - they were given time to research the topic, and then they debated each other on the topic. In a learning situation, you could get the kids to argue in favor of the side they disagreed with. What better way to learn about the opposing side then to defend it in a debate with intent to win! It forces the kids to learn about both sides of the issue, they all get to listen to different points of view, and they get to learn how to do an actual debate on top of it all! Win-win! 

But this is the overall issue I have with kids leading the fight. Yes, people listen to kids because of emotion and how hard it tugs their heart strings, and the leftist politicians do love to parade around children even though they really don't give a crud about them past their own agenda, the same as they feel about everyone else. It's power over all. But the reality of it is pretty cold. No, we shouldn't be listening to kids. Do they have a right to protest? Of course. They are citizens, too, and have the same rights as anyone else. But like celebrities, their opinions hold no more weight than anyone else's.  Less, even. Kids are not being taught how to think. They aren't being taught to study both sides of an issue and to form an honest opinion. They aren't being taught to sift through the crap to find the facts. They are being told what to think. They are being given lines and buzzwords and chant like sayings for standard signs and are being pushed in front of cameras to parrot it all back at us, because we feel things for kids. And we were all there. At some point, you believed what your parents believed. Then you believed the opposite of what they believed because that was being rebellious. And then you had life experiences and began doing your own research and really looking into issues and you began to form your own opinions. You stopped caring about being accepted by your peers or making mom and dad proud. Some of your opinions stayed the same, but many changed. Right now, though, these kids are in their teen years. They want to make their peers accept them and they want mom and dad to be proud. They don't want to argue with their parents or stand too far out from the crowd. They don't want to be the weird kid no one talks to and who people whisper about as they walk down the halls. They don't want to be like the school shooters, the weird kids no one bothered with. 

So yes, I believe the kids should be allowed to protest. But I also believe we need to get back to teaching our kids how to think and stop telling them what to think. We need to encourage our kids to learn about a topic before diving into it. And I think we need to stop making national spectacles out of our kids for an agenda they don't fully understand. Let your kids be kids. Let them grow up and get some life experience. Let them learn and be carefree. Those carefree years go by so fast. They don't understand yet that the world isn't a safe place. They want it to be, we all do, but it isn't. But most of all, allow them to become who they are meant to become, not what you force them to be. 

And let's be fair. If the protests are allowed for one, they must be allowed for all, and the schools aren't prepared for that. Kids will find something to protest every day if it gets them out of class. But stop teaching them an agenda. 

Every few years - especially at times like right now, when the gun debate is in full swing - stories get done about a town that requires all heads of household to maintain a firearm. This go around, we can thank CNN and Fox News alike for telling us - again - about Kennesaw, Georgia. 

In 1982, a law was enacted in Kennesaw, Georgia that says all heads of household must maintain a firearm. As they state, the law is not actually enforced. How could it be? Would they have a gun inspection? Do you let the cops into your home on a whim to see if you have a gun and to make sure it is well maintained? But still, the law is on the books. 

There are pros and cons to this. Of course, their crime rate is ridiculously low there. Would you assault someone or rob them knowing the town has a law in place stating they have to have a gun? The odds are extremely good in this instance that you'll get shot if you enter a home uninvited, or your victim may fight back in the street. You might be in the wrong town, my friend! 

However, I always recoil at the thought of being forced to own a gun. Now, I'm a second amendment supporter to the full extent. I also do happen to own guns. And I maintain them very well. But I see the second amendment as a right... not a requirement. 

As stated, the law isn't exactly enforced. A lot of gun laws aren't enforced in this country, as we know, which is why so few people get prosecuted for straw sales or lying on the 4473 to purchase a firearm. But what if it was? What would that mean?

Well, first of all, the questions I had above would be answered. In order to enforce the law, your gun collection would need to be verified. How is that done? Well... you might have to register those firearms. Which means at a later date they can be collected by extreme leftists if they get their agenda, or you could be taxed to death on them. And since you are required to own a gun, you'd have to pony up that tax no matter what. If you didn't, you'd be in violation of the law, and if you got rid of the gun to get out of the tax you'd be in violation of another law. 

Or, maybe the cops would come into your home once a year to make sure there was a gun on your property and you were keeping it clean and in working order. This means allowing the police to search your home, if even in a small amount. 

What happens if you go out of town? Since everyone in town is required to maintain a firearm, if you go on vacation for a week, your home is a prime target during the night. You'd have to get top notch security on your home, because a robber knows there is at least one gun in your house and you aren't there. And in the middle of the night, your neighbors are sleeping, not keeping an eye on your home. 

Aside from all of this, the right the keep and bear arms is just that. A right. It isn't a requirement. Some people don't want a gun, and that is their right. Look, I don't like people telling me I can't have a gun, and because of how that makes me feel, I wouldn't want to tell someone they must own one. If you want to practice the right, practice it. If you don't, you shouldn't be forced to. You're right to not own a gun is just as important as my right to own one. You should do what makes you feel safe in your home. I feel safer with a gun. You might feel safer without one. I don't know what's best for you, just as you don't know what's best for me. 

So nice story, but in reality, it is a bad law. Don't force people to do things they don't want to do. No one should have to move out of an area because of the laws, whether it be the people living in places like California that feel they need to move out of their state to reach freedom or people in Kennesaw, Georgia who feel they need to move out because they really don't want a gun in their homes. The Bill of Rights are rights, not demands. They lay out the freedoms we as Americans have and should maintain. They don't say those rights are demands. 

This story showed up on the news recently. Local as well as national. Now, to be clear, I am in no way disparaging this young lady, and I am thrilled she was given a scholarship. I'm glad there are still some out there that see value in rewarding good people for good deeds. And I am glad there has been a focus on a good person instead of an evil maniac. We need more focus on good people these days. 

But it also saddens me deeply. Let me explain. 

This story reminded me of the reaction to the young man who was photographed tying the shoes of an elderly customer, and the story of the cashier who went out of his way to pick up and return a $20 bill a blind man had unknowingly dropped. It also reminds me of the store employee who taught a teenager how to tie his tie for a job interview. While all four of these are great stories, it saddens me that they are news. 

The kindness these people showed should be basic kindness. The type of kindnesses you do for others just because it is the right thing to do. But the fact that they are so nationally news worthy means these basic kindnesses aren't so basic anymore. They made the news because so few of us still practice basic kindness. People are showering these people with gifts because we so rarely see people treating each other this way anymore. 

Somewhere along the line, we lost the basic kindnesses we should have. Simple things like not letting the door slam into the face of the person exiting behind you. Helping the elderly and disabled. Helping a child who got separated from their parent find either their parent or a police officer. 

People still enjoy these kindnesses, but few practice them. A few years ago, a local crossing guard unexpectedly passed away. Sunny was an elderly man who sat out by a local school every single day to assist with getting the kids across safely. But what people noticed was that Sunny sat outside in his chair and waved at every single car that went by. He always had a huge smile on his face, and no one passed him without a wave, even though many did not wave back. Sunny did, however, get very excited when anyone did wave back. 

When Sunny passed away, we were a town in mourning. It was covered on the local news the day he passed and was talked about through his memorial service, which was televised. A placard was put up in the spot in his honor, and the kids decorated where he once sat with pinwheels in every color of the rainbow, and for a year they replaced those pinwheels as they broke. Sunny's passing was treated in much the same way as the death of a politician or celebrity. And when people are asked why they reacted this way to the death of an elderly crossing guard, people respond with, "He was just a nice guy." 

When I was in NJ we had "Waving Willie." Every day, he put a chair out in his driveway and waved at the cars going by. After he died, people started leaving flowers in his driveway, and he is still talked about so many years later. Willie has been dead at least 20 years now, I guess. But people in NJ know exactly who you mean if you mention Waving Willie. 

All these two men did was wave at passing cars. And they offered a smile. That's it! A basic kindness! A wave and a smile. Something many people may have only gotten from those two men every day. And forget what an impact a basic kindness can have on a person. 

We live in a time when we are on our phones all the time and we don't notice the things around us. Our kids play video games instead of playing outside with friends. We are developing more and more technology that requires less and less human interaction on a daily basis. And when we hear about a young lady cutting the food of an elderly man, it is huge news and people are amazed by her kindness. The reality is that the world would be a better place if basic kindness wasn't so astounding. 

So here's your homework assignment. Pick one of the following and do it sometime during the next week:

1. Smile at the driver of the car next to you in traffic. 
2. While waiting in line at a store, strike up a conversation with someone behind you or in front of you. Something basic like, "Wow, am I glad the sun is finally back" or "This time change is killing me." You'd be amazed at how people react to a random stranger just saying something to them. Watch their guard drop immediately. 
3. While crossing the street, keep pace with a elderly or disabled person. You don't have to touch them, just keep pace so they know you have their back if they should fall or can't get across in time.
4. Talk to an elderly person who is alone. They have great stories. But more importantly, a lot of elderly people feel invisible. It will do wonders for them to know someone sees them. 

These are basic kindnesses. None of them cost money, and none of them will cost you much time out of your day, either. But it will impact those people more than you can know. And if enough of us do this often enough, basic kindnesses won't be astounding anymore. Wouldn't that be nice?