For the interview portion of this blog assignment I interviewed my dad, John Raynes. My dad proudly served his country and was in the Air Force for 21 ½ years before retiring. His current job position is a resource manager at a private elementary school in South Carolina. While he was active duty in the Air Force he worked in law enforcement, special operations, photography, and civil engineering. My dad has a lot of knowledge on gun control so I felt he was the perfect person to interview in order to learn more about the problem. After giving my dad a quick briefing of what my group’s blog was about and the issues of gun control I began the interview.
Q: Do you think this problem is important? If so, why?
A: “I think gun control is a major issue in our country
today. They try and control the guns from the law-abiding citizens, not for the
people that actually break the law. People who break the law are going to break
the law no matter what. I feel as though I am ripped across the coals because
of a few people. I mean look at it this way, one of the strictest gun control
is in Chicago, Illinois and they are the murder capital of the United States. Why
add more laws to the books when you are not even enforcing the laws that are on
the books? A main problem with our country is we are very reactive, not
proactive.”
Q: Do you think others in your community think this is an
important problem as well?
A: “The majority of the people in my community feel the same
way I do about guns. It is definitely a regional thing. The south is a more
gun-cultured society. People down here are used to learning about guns and
seeing them. When you have people elsewhere who do not know about them it is
easier for them to feel afraid of them and want them gone."
Q: Do you feel the existing policies deal with the problems?
A: “Our society was built on rights and one of our rights
was to bear arms. I served my country for 21 ½ years to protect that right and
I’m entitled to the right more so than most because of the sacrifice that I
gave for my country. All of the current policies such as classes, ID checks, and
background checks are great but only to a certain point. The reality of it is
bad people are going to get guns. They have the money to get them, and the
resources to get them, and I feel I have the right to protect myself from those
determined bad people.”
Q: Are there any improvements you feel should be made?
A: “Here is the thing. This is not a gun problem; it is a
mental health problem. Why? Because you have to be out of your mind to kill 29
children. You have to be out of your mind to go into a movie theatre and shoot
a bunch of people in a theatre that are unarmed. You have to be out of your
mind to go into a church during a service and just start shooting innocent
Christians. It is not about the gun, it is about the operator of the gun. Take
the Oklahoma City bomber, Tim McVeigh for example. He blew up people with a
fertilizer and diesel fuel bomb. There are no strict regulations on buying
fertilizer. One improvement I feel should be made is keeping track of people
who have been in the mental system. They should somehow be flagged so law
enforcement can take it into consideration when giving out gun permits. If
someone was in for severe PTSD, it might be a bad idea to give him a gun. I
know I’ll just hear it’s patient privacy for that one but it needs to be fixed
in situations like that. I’m worried about the person that’s a psychopath, but
they don’t want to address that because it’s not politically correct."
Q: Can you think of an example where this improvement would
have prevented a problem?
A: “Yeah, take the Sandy Hook tragedy for example. Adam
Lanza had mental problems, and his mom bonds with him by taking him shooting.
She also let him play violent video games for hours, which put ideas into his
head that he may have not been able to distinguish right from wrong. In my eyes
she was fanning the flames. She shouldn’t have been able to own guns because of
her son’s mental disabilities. All in all, our country fails to deal with mental health.”
Q: You have left me with a lot to reflect upon, is there
anything you would like to end on?
A: “Yes, please read the second amendment. The reason our
founding fathers devised the second amendment was to protect us from tyranny.
And a main point to get from this is it’s not the gun it’s the operator.
Blaming the gun is like blaming the fork because you’re fat.”
Reflection on Interview:
After I said goodbye to by dad and logged off Skype I began looking at all of my notes I took from our interview. It was clear from my notes that this was a topic my dad felt very passionate about because he has a lot to say about the problem. My dad has always been a person with strong opinions however he backs them up with strong evidence. He is also respectful to not push his views on anyone, but he is always happy to share his views and opinions. He introduced me to new issues with our country's current gun policies that I plan to do more research on. The topic of mental disabilities is a whole other field to look into. I am curious to see if the government really takes mental disabilities into consideration when assigning gun permits. It is a hard thing to address because of the strict patient privacy policies and it could also lead to discrimination issues. I agree with my dad's belief that the family members of the person wishing to gain a gun permit should be given a background check as well. They will have access to this gun and should be educated and mentally stable to handle the responsibilities of owning a gun. I also felt my dad brought up an excellent point of blaming the operator not the gun. A gun does not begin shooting people on its own, it needs someone to pull the trigger. I believe our country needs to really figure out the best way to address our gun problem because it seems to only be getting worse. We need to somehow find a way to prevent the wrong people from owning guns and not punish the law abiding citizens in the process. Unforuntatly, like with many other things, a few people can ruin something for the whole.
Here is a photograph of my dad, John Raynes, and I:
- Ashley Raynes
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