Not an expert on constitutional law or anything else, just a gal with some thoughts

I've kept my opinion off line for the most part because, honestly, what difference will it make?  The difference my opinion will make is at the polls, where I shop, what businesses I choose to support.  Gun control, the 2nd amendment, safer schools and the simple idea that some asshole with a gun will not shoot me while I shop, movie watch, pray or rock out are all very hot and emotional topics, especially today as it was March for our lives across much of America.
Most of what I say will be my own opinion which has been formed through 48 years of experience that is all my own.  I will probably make up some percentages and will misquote the constitution.  You are welcome to tell me how wrong or right I am in the comments and I will read them and appreciate what you have to say knowing that your opinions are based on your own unique life experiences.
Guns are not evil.  They are often the preferred tool of evil.  As have spears, swords, boulders, words, tylenol capsules and packages.  I have a great fondness of guns, in particular WWII era rifles that my dad collected, frequently cleaned and cared for.  That fondness has absolutely nothing to do with what they do, but with who I was with when I learned (I don't remember what I learned) about them.  I appreciated that these weapons were often the weapons of the Allies (I watched Big Red One, I knew the score).   I saw no evil in the wood stocks that were a little gouged from use, in the leather slings that were stretched from years of being slung over a soldier's shoulder, from the history of where this gun traveled from and from who it served.  I don't remember a time when a gun was not something I knew about.
The first gun massacres I recall were in California outside of a McDonald's and in Texas at a Ruby's.  And then I didn't hear about them again until Columbine.  It feels like it hasn't stopped since Columbine.  It feels like there is always an asshole with a gun and not nearly enough is there a not an asshole with a gun to stop him.  And I think too often the not asshole would be outgunned.  And that, my friends, makes me sick.  I love a lot of not assholes with guns.  I don't want them to be at the mall with a handgun concealed in their waistband when an asshole looking to create mass terror and mass destruction walks in with a weapon (this is where I may make up facts even if I try to fact check, I don't know what I'm reading) that has a magazine that holds 100 rounds.  I am confident that if the asshole had to stop and change magazines, the not asshole would eliminate the threat. 
I have a permit to carry.  I don't carry.  I have enough shit in my purse, if I needed to pull out a gun, there is a good chance I would attempt to protect myself with lip balm and a tampon.  I do not have an issue with those that do carry concealed.  In fact, I am very pleased to know that there are many very well trained, even keeled individuals out there that are willing and able to stop a threat.  I am glad to know that the individuals that teach about gun safety and use are well educated and well versed in real life situations.  I pray that these individuals will never have to be that one that stops the threat, but as we saw in Maryland just this past week, we need those sheepdogs.  I do have an issue with those that choose to not conceal.  I believe that those individuals often choose to show the world their weapon because they think it is cool and I believe that they create an unnecessary climate of fear in Target.  Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. 
I know there was a lot of backlash to Dick's when they announced that they would no longer sell rifles to those under 21.  I believe Walmart made the same decision but I don't recall that they received the same backlash.  I believe it is harder to boycott a store that sells just about everything one needs at a reasonable price than it is to boycott a store that sells sporting goods.  But the beauty of it is, if you don't like a store, company practice, you can not put your money where your mouth is.  Imagine if we got this fired up about oil spills and clear cutting forests! 
My problem is with the age of 21.  That fucker in Las Vegas was a long way from 21.  And why is 21 this arbitrary number that allows you to all of a sudden make the right decisions about firearms and alcohol (unless you are in the military and then you are trained and expected to make the right decisions with a firearm at 18 and unless you are in Europe and then you are able to make the right decisions with alcohol at 18) and I know plenty of people that are far from 21 that cannot make a correct decision regarding alcohol (me).  But at the same time, people have to show ID to buy children's cough medicine because there are enough people out there that cannot make a good decision with a normal product. 
School safety is another hot topic.  Do we arm teachers?  Why am I saying, do we?  I am not arming anyone.  God, I don't even arm myself.  I am not keen on arming teachers based on the opinions I have read from teachers.  They have expressed their opinions about already often feeling overwhelmed with what they are tasked with by the school and society and with what they have tasked themselves with, as well.  Instead of training and arming teachers, I would rather see enhanced security measures, increased funding for more staff especially with at risk kids and trained security and police officers.  The opinions I have read from teachers is that no amount of training could prepare them to shoot a child, perhaps a former or current student.  That they just couldn't.  That is not to say that there aren't some teachers that would be an asset armed, but if someone knows that they could not stop the threat, don't put them in that position with the expectation that they would. 
I believe that no amount of law will stop an asshole.  And I also believe that an asshole will take the easiest route to cause the desired amount of terror.  It is very difficult to get a gun in Great Britain so the assholes often use a lorry or knife.  The assholes of the middle east use explosives strapped to themselves, how are you going to stop that?  There are assholes crashing planes and making bombs and creating synthetic heroin that makes one eat other people's faces.  None of this is legal or ok or accepted by society.  And generally, we try to make it harder for the next asshole.  That's why I don't mind if there is a waiting period to buy any gun.  I don't think it is very often that someone needs a gun right now.  It isn't like its milk or bread or toilet paper.  It is a gun.  If you need to go hunting, check your equipment four days in advance.  If you need to kill a rabid dog on your property, call the animal control.  If you need to shoot someone, well, that's why there would be a waiting period.  Of course, a waiting period wouldn't have stopped Las Vegas or Ft. Hood or most of the other shootings.  But maybe it will stop the next one.  Maybe it will stop a pissed off hothead asshole from swinging into Walmart for milk, bread and an AR-15 or any other gun and shooting someone.  I don't think this is what the second amendment had in mind.  Maybe it did.  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  Again, not a constitutional law expert, as so many are, but I truly don't know what that means.  I take it to mean that I can have a gun and be part of a militia to protect my state and the federals can't stop me. 
 I wouldn't describe any of these assholes with guns as part of a well regulated Militia.  If the idea of the second amendment was so that I, as an armed citizen, could defend myself against a tyrannical government, well, ok!  But I am pretty sure that I could not own a powerful enough weapon to defend myself against a government's weapons.  But, in the Red Dawn scenario, I would want to try.  And in such a scenario, I think all three day waiting periods would become null and void because we would all be trying to kick a foreign invader's ass.  Same with zombie apocalypse.  A weapon to protect yourself and family and home, absolutely.  Just know there will be a three day period of wait.  Like Good Friday to Easter.  We've been doing that for 2000 years and it's worked out okay.
Now, on to these damn kids protesting.  In all of this debate, I think this is where I am most frustrated.  Why in the world are people so against these peaceful protests?  Yes, I know there were some really shitty things that happened at some of the walk outs on March 14th.  I saw the video of the kids that tore down the United States flag.  I don't think their shitty actions were representative of the majority of the kids that walked out to honor and draw attention to the seventeen victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.   If my kids were still in school, I would have supported them walking out because I know they would not have desecrated a flag, that they would have been respectful of the situation and that their voice matters.  Telling someone that they cannot possibly have an opinion in this is bullshit.  I have seen the memes that (paraphrasing here)  "So you're telling me that last week you were eating Tide pods and now you are an expert on constitutional law?"  Seriously, does anyone think that these are the same kids?  The average heroin addict is a white suburbanite in their early twenties.  Doesn't mean it is all white suburbanites in their early twenties.  Just a few, some perhaps, but not all.  And why can't these kids be experts on constitutional law?  Or at least as much of an expert as those people that disagree with them on facebook think they are.  What I know about the constitution is what I have read on the internet (I used Constitutioncenter.org and loc.gov) what Nicholas Cage taught me in National Treasure (one not two) and what the bill sang about on Capitol Hill. These kids are far more internet savvy than I am, I am sure they know how to toggle between sites, absorb information faster and have the desire to be articulate and informed when they talk to the president or CNN.  Many are voting in the midterm elections, I want them to be educated when they vote.  I want them to be well informed when they go to college or get a job or serve in the military.  Do we really want dissuade the activists and create a generation of adults that only eat Tide, play on their phones and let us swim in our own urine as we grow old because they have zero respect for us because we would not support their right to peaceful assembly.  By the way, that's the First Amendment.  Plus, I am pretty sure it was partly because of protests that I get to go to the polls in November and vote.  And I won't be casting my vote based on who voted what in the gun debate, I will be voting for those that support education because I truly believe if we got our heads out of our asses and supported schools and teachers with less rhetoric and more money, a lot of all the problems would right themselves. 
In 1973, using the 14th Amendment, the supreme court ruled that women had a constitutional right to legal abortion.  For 45 years, people, many of them in high school, have been marching on Washington in protest of this decision.  I have never seen or heard or read a meme disparaging these people.  And I struggle to see the difference, these are two marches that are trying to save lives.  The language on the signs are very similar.  The passion in the hearts is identical.  Regardless of how I feel about gun control or abortion, these young people have the right (it's the first one on the bill) to peacefully assemble. 
Facebook is great for sharing our information with companies that try to sway our votes (don't get me started on that one) knowing when it is someone's birthday or to sell our direct sales company stuff, but it is probably not the best place to change what is broken in our nation and world.  I feel like we have all become Monday morning quarterbacks with absolutely no respect or courtesy to any other team.  We have all become Harry Wormwood in Matilda"  I'm smart, you're dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm right, you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it."  But with a little civility and a pledge to only share memes that are 1. true 2. dog based or 3. are sarcastic, we could actually learn to listen and like each other again.
  

Me Too, God Damn It

Well, #METOO and I am gutted.
Sometime in the past five years I became friends with a customer that comes in once or twice a week.  An older man who dresses in layers because he walks a couple of miles to work.  Usually, not clean shaven.  Always carrying a well worn lunch box.  The first time I saw him I also saw another employee give him the most disapproving look so I did the opposite   I went out of my way, literally, down a different aisle to cut him off so I could say good morning and offer a smile.  Thanks to my mothers' orthodontic insistence, I have a very nice smile and he complimented me on it.  That started a conversation about my reluctance and my mother's knowledge that a nice smile is important. 
Fast forward the next few years and he would enquire about my family and I would enquire about his job.  I kept him updated on when I would be out of the store so he wouldn't needlessly stop in (he rarely bought anything, just stopping in for a visit).  I'd give him a hug, make sure he'd be warm enough on the below zero days and would have him top off his water bottle on the summer days.  I knew that he lived in a home with other men.  He talked about sitting on the stoop with them.  He was always so friendly and I genuinely thought he enjoyed this friendship.  I know that I looked forward to seeing him and worried when I didn't.
I would give him a hug and never thought anything of it.  I appreciated this friendship, and thought he did as well.
The last time I gave him a hug, he decided to take it further and grabbed my ass.
And what did I do?
Absolutely nothing but end the hug.  I was flabbergasted.  I didn't immediately process it.  I really wanted to deny it, to think it was something else, but no.  I know my ass, I know when it's been grabbed.  It was a blatant disregard to me, the human that made human contact.  A giant fuck you to the friendship that was cultivated.  I cared about him.  Worried about him.  Wondered about him.  And now I am mad and more so, sad.  I am left with the incredibly uncomfortable option to confront him, avoid him or ignore what happened.
I am left feeling like I shouldn't hurt his feelings.  Which is ridiculous, fuck his feelings.  Fuck that he has made me second guess what he did and has made me second guess being kind.  Kind which is completely different from being nice and cordial.  And I was not dressed provocatively in my khaki pants and blue polo.  I was not talking suggestively when I told him how much my dog loves playing fetch, that we spoil her.  I was not leading him on when I told him how beautiful my daughter's wedding was and that my husband looked dashing in his bow tie.  I was not trying to get something from him with my friendship,  I was not pressing my boobs against him.  There was no sexual innuendo when I enquired about his health, his warmth, his well being.
Shame on him and every other man that makes a woman feel guilty for what they have done, for the line they have crossed.  They should be ashamed and embarrassed and they should be the ones initiating the difficult conversation about where hands are to be and how a proper hug is given.
And I admit, I hoped that with me three week absence from work, be would think I'd quit and I could avoid the entire situation.  But I owe it to every other woman that had had these feelings, has been in these and far worse situations to speak up and out.
In no way am I comparing this to the greater instances of harassment and abuse that runs rampant in the world.  I have realized though, that the emotions come from the same place of hurt, denial and shame.  It makes the responses that others have had more understandable and I hope, me more empathetic.
I told my manager what had happened and that I intended to confront him in the most polite way possible since I was at work.  My manager really didn't have a response, and that's okay as it didn't involve work or him, and I just wanted to give him a heads up.  My first day back to work, he came in and I headed to the stockroom, a failure .  A  day or two later, my manager told me that he was in the store, but that I should just stay in the office.  He knew how upset I was and i think, afraid of a scene.  I went out on the sales floor and still, couldn't confront him.  Only said that I had been on vacation and that I had a terrible cold.   I was pissed at myself for not being brave enough or sure enough to speak up.
He came in again today, found me in the back of the store. And I told him.  I told him that I was not comfortable with the way he touched me the last time we hugged and that I would not hug him again.  I said that it was very upsetting and very uncomfortable.  I told him that I was still very angry and hurt.  He said he was sorry.  I am grateful that he didn't try to excuse it or deny it.  I am glad it is over.  And I am so sad that I lost this friend.