Recently, our living room was filled with the light of the TV as we sat on the edge of our chairs, tuned in to the news of yet another mass shooting. Are you kidding me? Do you really think just because you live in a nowhere mountain town in Southwest Colorado that you are far from this kind of craziness? The next mass shooting will not have anything to with ISIS or racial discontent, but everything to do with a mishandled mental disorder.
I walked into my new bank and on a tripod announcement board, a shocking poster stared me in the face: a Christmas bake sale poster pinned below a $10 raffle drawing for a 45 caliber pistol. I am not anti-gun-ownership, but this is an outrageous reality, especially in light of what is happening around the country from one week to the next. You want to sell a gun, sell it via the proper channels. Oh! There are no proper channels? You mean, for $10 any Joe Blow or Jane Blow out there can purchase a raffle ticket in hopes of winning for a 45 caliber pistol? Am I losing it or is this a crazy invite for disaster within our mountain community?
Just remember mass shootings have little to do with the dramas going on across the globe and more to do with being fed ideas about how you can go down in history as the one who shot innocent people before you shot yourself! To be clear, I am not anti-gun. I am anti raffling guns! Let’s pull it together and create some guidelines before some fragile-minded soul gets it in his or her head to go down in history as the one who killed your kid, or husband or wife or mother or daughter or son or friend.
Marja Goodwin
Mancos