It’s been kind of depressing to watch the news recently.  Well, it’s always kind of depressing to watch the news, but recently with the shooting at the elementary school and then all the following talks about gun laws.  It’s just kind of crazy to see everyone trying to come up with a different solution to the problem.  “Guns are the problem!  Ban guns!”  Or “guns aren’t the problem; the problem is crazy people!’

They’re both right.

Of course, you don’t hear about sane, responsible gun owners shooting random people.

We had guns when I was growing up, and while we were all taught how to use them, we were also taught how to be responsible with them, and all of them were kept in their respective rifle or pistol safe.  Of course, only our parents were able to open them, but still.

So I think the problem recently isn’t necessarily the weapons themselves, it’s that crazy people have access to them.  Banning guns doesn’t work (look at the cities who have tried that; did it reduce gun violence?).  Having a firearm for personal protection/defense probably isn’t the issue, although it would be hard to convince me that anyone needs an assault rifle.  The military has a use for them, but Joe Schmoe gun owner?  No.

But until we have the technology to disable a gun when a crazy person picks it up, I don’t think the issue will ever really be resolved.

This topic is making me upset so I’m going to switch to something else, ready?  Shooting is a hobby of mine, so let’s talk about hobbies.  As it’s been the new year now officially for 3 days, I figured I would talk about a bout resolutions.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am planning on starting my running program again for this year.  But in addition to that, I’m also thinking about revisiting an old hobby of mine: painting.

I remember in high school when I took an art class and they were teaching us how to paint, except they only gave us the primary colors and we had to mix the rest on our own!  Like if you wanted to use green, you had to mix blue and yellow.  At first I was annoyed, but shortly thereafter something about it struck me as being very cool, and I became really interested in that class.  I didn’t really have much skill (and my teacher didn’t think so, either, seeing as how I ended up with a C), but I had a ton of fun.  I ended up taking a few more art classes in high school, and even buying myself some paints and practice canvases for use at home.  I messed around with them a little in college but was mostly too busy with my real classes, but I haven’t even painted in years now, and it’s something I’m kind of itching to get back into, so I may have to take a trip to the art store one of these days and pick up some brushes and paints (but only the primary colors!).