BLOG: This blog is not about gun control

Anyone with any sense of what’s been going on in the United States knows that gun control has been a hot button topic in the news recently. I’m not going to tell you what to think, but for Pete’s sake, think.

Some colleagues and I were sitting in the newsroom throwing some banter back and forth on the topic. Is it unreasonable for college professors to carry weapons? If students were allowed to have guns in their dormitories, should they have to do extra paperwork, and furthermore, would they?

That’s when someone made the comment that it didn’t matter either way, because 75 percent of the people any change in gun control laws would effect had no real grasp on what was happening in the legislature. The other 25 percent would be split into those who want stricter laws and wouldn’t change their minds, those who wanted fewer laws and wouldn’t change their minds, and reporters.

Come to think of it, I never followed the news until I had to. That is, in middle school and high school, I rarely took notice of what was happening on a wider scope because it was too dang depressing. Now, I’ve seen the video of innocent reporters being killed in the Middle East thanks to Wikileaks, and it has changed me as a person. As a journalist it’s my job to have a file in the back of my brain containing a bunch of useless political and scientific facts.

For example, I had to learn about corn yields for an article one summer. I didn’t, and still don’t really care about crops, but I had to comb through news article after news article to find out as much as I could about the topic. Senate and congressional proceedings are some of the most confusing things I have ever encountered, but I’ve acquired a basic knowledge after having to write news stories on the subject.

So, back to the guns.

A lot of my friends have no real opinion or knowledge about the legislature that has been going through the system. Some of them have bothered to have an opinion about whether we should be able to carry concealed weapons, but that’s about the extent of it. What scares me the most is that I know more than the ones who are majoring in political science.

To summarize, people need to wake up. I’m not saying you need to dwell on the darkness that is Kony, nuclear weapon development and school shootings. What I am saying is that people should at least educate themselves on a basic level about the things that could potentially affect their freedom as American citizens.